GIFT   OF 
A.    F.    -.i 


THE  ROMANCE    OF  OLD 
NEW   ENGLAND   ROOFTREES 


Little   Pilgrimages    Series 


Among  the  Men  Who  Have  Written 
Famous  Books,  First  Series 
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Famous  Books,  Second  Series 
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Literary  Boston  of  To-Day 
By  Helen  M.  Winslow 

The  Romance  of  Old  New  England 
Eooftrees 

By  Mary  C.  Crawford 

The  Romance  of  Old  New  England 
Churches 

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GIFT  OF 


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FOREWORD 

rESE  little  sketches  have  been 
vritten  to  supply  what  seemed 
to  the  author  a  real  need,  —  a 
volume  which  should  give  clearly,  com- 
pactly, and  with  a  fair  degree  of  readable- 
ness,  the  stories  connected  with  the  surviv- 
ing old  houses  of  'New  England.  That  de- 
lightful writer,  Mr.  Samuel  Adams  Drake, 
has  in  his  many  works  on  the  historic 
mansions  of  colonial  times,  provided  all 
necessary  data  for  the  serious  student,  and 
to  him  the  deep  indebtedness  of  this  work 
is  fully  and  frankly  acknowledged.  Yet 
there  was  no  volume  which  gave  entire  the 
tales  of  chief  interest  to  the  majority  of 

iii 


M105G33 


FOBEWORI) 


readers.  It  is,  therefore,  to  such  searchers 
after  the  romantic  in  New  England's  his- 
tory that  the  present  book  is  offered. 

It  but  remains  to  mention  with  grati- 
tude the  many  kind  friends  far  and  near 
who  have  helped  in  the  preparation  of  the 
material,  and  especially  to  thank  Messrs. 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  publishers  of  the 
works  of  Hawthorne,  Whittier,  Longfel- 
low, and  Higginson,  by  permission  of  and 
special  arrangement  with  whom  the  selec- 
tions of  the  authors  named,  are  used ;  the 
Macmillan  Co.,  for  permission  to  use  the 
extracts  from  Lindsay  Swift's  "  Brook 
Farm  " ;  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  for  their 
kindness  in  allowing  quotations  from  their 
work,  " Historic  Towns  of  New  England"  ; 
Small,  Maynard  &  Co.,  for  the  use  of  the 
anecdote  credited  to  their  Beacon  Biogra- 
phy of  Samuel  E.  B.  Morse ;  Little,  Brown 
&  Co.,  for  their  marked  courtesy  in  the 
iv 


FOKEWORD 


extension  of  quotation  privileges,  and  Mr. 
Samuel  T.  Pickard,  Whittier's  literary  ex- 
ecutor, for  the  new  Whittier  material  here 
given.  M.  c.  c. 

Charlestown,  Massachusetts,  1902. 


"  All  houses  wherein  men  have  lived  and  died  are 
haunted  houses."  Longfellow. 

"  So  very  difficult  a  matter  is  it  to  trace  and  find 
out  the  truth  of  anything  by  history." 

Plutarch. 

"...   Common  as  light  is  love, 
And  its  familiar  voice  wearies  not  ever." 

Shelley. 

11 ...  I  discern 
Infinite  passion  and  the  pain 
Of  finite  hearts  that  yearn." 

Browning. 

"  'Tis  an  old  tale  and  often  told." 

Scott. 


VI 


CONTENTS 


Page 

Foreword  iii 

The  Heir  of  Swift's  Vanessa  11 

The  Maid  of  -Marblehead  37 

An  American-Born  Baronet  59 

Molly  Stark's  Gentleman-Son  74 

A  Soldier  of  Fortune  90 

The  Message  of  the  Lanterns  104 

Hancock's  Dorothy  Q.  117 
Baroness    Riedesel    and    Her    Tory 

Friends  130 
Doctor  Church :  First  Traitor  to  the 

American  Cause  147 
A  Victim  of  Two  Revolutions  159 
The  Woman  Veteran    of   the    Con- 
tinental Army  170 
The  Redeemed  Captive  190 
New  England's  First  "  Club  Woman  "  210 
In  the  Reign  of  the  Witches  225 
Lady  Wentworth  of  the  Hall  241 
An  Historic  Tragedy  251 
Inventor  Morse's   Unfulfilled  Ambi- 
tion 264 
Where  the  "Brothers  and  Sisters" 
Met  279 

vii 


CONTENTS 


Page 

The  Brook  Farmers  293 

Margaret  Fuller :  Marchesa  d'Ossoli  307 
The    Old   Manse   and    Some  of   Its 

Mosses  324 

Salem's  Chinese  God  341 

The  Well-Sweep  of  a  Song  356 

Whittier's  Lost  Love  366 


LIST   OP   ILLUSTRATIONS 


Page 
Sir  Harry  Frankland  (See  page  48) 

Frontispiece 

Whitehall,  Newport,  R.  I.  31 
Agnes  Surriage  Pump,  Marblehead, 

Mass.  39 
Summer  House,  Royall  Estate,  Med- 

ford,  Mass.  63 
Royall    House,    Medford,    Mass.  — 

Pepperell  House,  Kittery,  Maine  66 

Stark  House,  Dumbarton,  N.  H.  79 
General  Lee's  Headquarters,  Somer- 

ville,  Mass.  94 
Christ  Church  —  Paul  Revere  House, 

Boston,  Mass.  104 

Clark  House,  Lexington,  Mass.  118 

Dorothy  Q.  House,  Quincy,  Mass.  123 

Riedesel  House,  Cambridge,  Mass.  145 
House  Where   Doctor   Church   Was 

Confined,  Cambridge,  Mass.  149 

Swan  House,  Dorchester,  Mass.  161 

Deborah  Sampson  Gannett  170 

Gannett  House,  Sharon,  Mass.  188 

Williams  House,  Deerfield,  Mass.  193 

ix 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Reverend  Stephen  Williams  204 
Old  Corner  Bookstore,  Site  of  the 

Hutchinson  House,  Boston,  Mass.  214 

Old  Witch  House,  Salem,  Mass.  225 
Rebecca    Nourse    House,    Danvers, 

Mass.  229 
Red  Horse  Tavern,  Sudbury,  Mass.  242 
Governor  Wentworth  House,  Ports- 
mouth, N.  H.  246 
Fairbanks  House,  Dedham,  Mass.  260 
Edes  House,  Birthplace  of  Professor 

Morse,  Charlestown,  Mass.  264 
Oval  Parlour,  Fay  House,  Cam- 
bridge, Mass.  286 
Brook  Farm,  West  Roxbury,  Mass.  296 
Fuller  House,  Cambridgeport,  Mass.  312 
Old  Manse,  Concord,  Mass.  324 
Townsend  House,  Salem,  Mass.  342 
Old  Oaken  Bucket  House,  Scituate, 

Mass.  359 
Whittier's   Birthplace,  East   Haver- 
hill,  Mass.  380 


THE 

ROMANCE    OF    OLD    NEW 
ENGLAND    ROOFTREES 

THE  HEIE  OF  SWIFT'S  VANESSA 

71  TOWHEKE  in  the  annals  of  our 
/  V^  history  is  recorded  an  odder 
phase  of  curious  fortune  than  that 
by  which  Bishop  Berkeley,  of  Cloyne,  was 
enabled  early  in  the  eighteenth  century  to 
sail  overseas  to  Newport,  Rhode  Island, 
there  to  build  (in  1729)  the  beautiful  old 
place,  Whitehall,  which  is  still  standing. 
Hundreds  of  interested  visitors  drive 
every  summer  to  the  old  house,  to  take  a 
cup  of  tea,  to  muse  on  the  strange  story 

11 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTEEES 


with  winch  the  ancient  dwelling  is  con- 
nected,-and  to  pay  the  meed  of  respectful 
n  u'-inory.  to  .the  eminent  philosopher  who 
there  lived  and  wrote. 

The  poet  Pope  once  assigned  to  this 
bishop  "  every  virtue  under  heaven,"  and 
this  high  reputation  a  study  of  the  man's 
character  faithfully  confirms.  As  a  stu- 
dent at  Dublin  University,  George  Berke- 
ley won  many  friends,  because  of  his 
handsome  face  and  lovable  nature,  and 
many  honours  by  reason  of  his  brilliancy 
in  mathematics.  Later  he  became  a  fel- 
low of  Trinity  College,  and  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  Swift,  Steele,  and  the  other 
members  of  that  brilliant  Old  World  liter- 
ary circle,  by  all  of  whom  he  seems  to 
have  been  sincerely  beloved. 

A  large  part  of  Berkeley's  early  life 
was  passed  as  a  travelling  tutor,  but  soon 
after  Pope  had  introduced  him  to  the 
12 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOETREES 

Earl  of  Burlington,  he  was  made  dean 
of  Derry,  through  the  good  offices  of 
that  gentleman,  and  of  his  friend,  the  Duke 
of  Grafton,  then  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ire- 
land. Berkeley,  however,  never  cared  for 
personal  aggrandisement,  and  he  had  long 
been  cherishing  a  project  which  he  soon 
announced  to  his  friends  as  a  "  scheme  for 
converting  the  savage  Americans  to  Chris- 
tianity by  a  college  to  be  erected  in  the 
Summer  Islands,  otherwise  called  the  Isles 
of  Bermuda." 

In  a  letter  from  London  to  his  life-long 
friend  and  patron,  Lord  Percival,  then  at 
Bath,  we  find  Berkeley,  under  date  of 
March,  1723,  writing  thus  of  the  enter- 
prise which  had  gradually  fired  his  imag- 
ination :  "  It  is  now  about  ten  months 
since  I  have  determined  to  spend  the 
residue  of  my  days  in  Bermuda,  where  I 
trust  in  Providence  I  may  be  the  mean 

13 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOETKEES 

instrument  of  doing  great  good  to  man- 
kind. The  reformation  of  manners  among 
the  English  in  our  western  plantations, 
and  the  propagation  of  the  gospel  among 
the  American  savages,  are  two  points  of 
high  moment.  The  natural  way  of  doing 
this  is  by  founding  a  college  or  seminary 
in  some  convenient  part  of  the  West  Indies, 
where  the  English  youth  of  our  plantations 
may  be  educated  in  such  sort  as  to  supply 
their  churches  with  pastors  of  good  morals 
and  good  learning  —  a  thing  (God  knows) 
much  wanted.  In  the  same  seminary  a 
number  of  young  American  savages  may 
also  be  educated  until  they  have  taken  the 
degree  of  Master  of  Arts.  And  being  by 
that  time  well  instructed  in  the  Christian 
religion,  practical  mathematics,  and  other 
liberal  arts  and  sciences,  and  early  imbued 
with  public-spirited  principles  and  inclina- 
tions, they  may  become  the  fittest  instru- 
14 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

ments  for  spreading  religion,  morals,  and 
civil  life  among  their  countrymen,  who  can 
entertain  no  suspicion  or  jealousy  of  men 
of  their  own  blood  and  language,  as  they 
might  do  of  English  missionaries,  who  can 
never  be  well  qualified  for  that  work." 

Berkeley  then  goes  on  to  describe  the 
plans  of  education  for  American  youths 
which  he  had  conceived,  gives  his  reasons 
for  preferring  the  Bermudas  as  a  site  for 
the  college,  and  presents  a  bright  vision 
of  an  academic  centre  from  which  should 
radiate  numerous  beautiful  influences  that 
should  make  for  Christian  civilisation  in 
America.  Even  the  gift  of  the  best  dean- 
ery in  England  failed  to  divert  him  from 
thoughts  of  this  Utopia.  "  Derry,"  he 
wrote,  "  is  said  to  be  worth  £1,500  per 
annum,  but  I  do  not  consider  it  with  a  view 
to  enriching  myself.  I  shall  be  perfectly 


15 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

contented  if  it  facilitates  and  recommends 
rny  scheme  of  Bermuda." 

But  the  thing  which  finally  made  it 
possible  for  Berkeley  to  come  to  America, 
the  incident  which  is  responsible  for 
Whitehall's  existence  to-day  in  a  grassy 
valley  to  the  south  of  Honeyman's  Hill, 
two  miles  back  from  the  "  second  beach/' 
at  Newport,  was  the  tragic  ending  of  as 
sad  and  as  romantic  a  story  as  is  to  be 
found  anywhere  in  the  literary  life  of 
England. 

Swift,  as  has  been  said,  was  one  of  the 
friends  who  was  of  great  service  to  Berke- 
ley when  he  went  up  to  London  for  the 
first  time.  The  witty  and  impecunious 
dean  had  then  been  living  in  London  for 
more  than  four  years,  in  his  "  lodging 
in  Berry  Street,"  absorbed  in  the  political 
intrigue  of  the  last  years  of  Queen  Anne, 
and  sending  to  Stella,  in  Dublin,  the  daily 
16 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

journal,  which  so  faithfully  preserves  the 
incidents  of  those  years.  Under  date  of 
an  April  Sunday  in  1713,  we  find  in  this 
journal  these  lines,  Swift's  first  mention  of 
our  present  hero:  "  I  went  to  court  to-day 
on  purpose  to  present  Mr.  Berkeley,  one  of 
our  fellows  at  Trinity  College.  That  Mr. 
Berkeley  is  a  very  ingenious  man,  and  a 
great  philosopher,  and  I  have  mentioned 
him  to  all  the  ministers,  and  have  given 
them  some  of  his  writings,  and  I  will 
favour  him  as  much  as  I  can." 

In  the  natural  course  of  things  Berkeley 
soon  heard  much,  though  he  saw  scarcely 
anything,  of  Mrs.  Vanhomrigh  and  her 
daughter,  the  latter  the  famous  and  un- 
happy "  Vanessa,"  both  of  whom  were  set- 
tled at  this  tim,e  in  Berry  Street,  near 
Swift,  in  a  house  where,  Swift  writes  to 
Stella,  "  I  loitered  hot  and  lazy  after  my 
morning's  work,"  and  often  dined  "  out 

IT 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

of  mere  listlessness,"  keeping  there  "  my 
best  gown  and  perriwig  "  when  at  Chelsea. 

Mrs.  Vanhomrigh  was  the  widow  of  a 
Dutch  merchant,  who  had  followed  William 
the  Third  to  Ireland,  and  there  obtained 
places  of  profit,  and  her  daughter,  Esther, 
or  Hester,  as  she  is  variously  called,  was 
a  girl  of  eighteen  when  she  first  met  Swift, 
and  fell  violently  in  love  with  him.  This 
passion  eventually  proved  the  girl's  perdi- 
tion, —  and  was,  as  we  shall  see,  the  cause 
of  a  will  which  enabled  Dean  Berkeley  to 
carry  out  his  dear  and  cherished  scheme  of 
coming  to  America. 

Swift's  journal,  frank  about  nearly 
everything  else  in  the  man's  life,  is  signifi- 
cantly silent  concerning  Esther  Vanhom- 
righ. And  in  truth  there  was  little  to  be 
said  to  anybody,  and  nothing  at  all  to  be 
confided  to  Stella,  in  regard  to  this  un- 
happy affair.  That  Swift  was  flattered  to 
18 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

find  this  girl  of  eighteen,  with  beauty  and 
accomplishment,  caring  so  much  for  him,  a 
man  now  forty-four,  and  bound  by  honour, 
if  not  by  the  Church,  to  Stella,  one  cannot 
doubt.  At  first,  their  relations  seem  to 
have  been  simply  those  of  teacher  and 
pupil,  and  this  phase  of  the  matter  it  is 
which  is  most  particularly  described  in 
the  famous  poem,  "  Cadenus  and  Vanessa/' 
written  at  Windsor  in  1713,  and  first  pub- 
lished after  Vanessa's  death. 

Human  nature  has  perhaps  never  before 
or  since  presented  the  spectacle  of  a  man 
of  such  transcendent  powers  as  Swift  in- 
volved in  such  a  pitiable  labyrinth  of  the 
affections  as  marked  his  whole  life.  Pride 
or  ambition  led  him  to  postpone  indefi- 
nitely his  marriage  with  Stella,  to  whom 
he  was  early  attached.  Though  he  said 
he  "  loved  her  better  than  his  life  a  thou- 
sand millions  of  times,"  he  kept  her 

19 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

always  hanging  on  in  a  state  of  hope  de- 
ferred, injurious  alike  to  her  peace  and 
her  reputation.  And  because  of  Stella,  he 
dared  not  afterward  with  manly  sincerity 
admit  his  undoubted  affection  for  Vanessa. 
For,  if  one  may  believe  Doctor  Johnson, 
he  married  Stella  in  1716, — though  he 
died  without  acknowledging  this  union, 
and  the  date  given  would  indicate  that  the 
ceremony  occurred  while  his  devotion  to 
his  young  pupil  was  at  its  height. 

Touching  beyond  expression  is  the  story 
of  Vanessa  after  she  had  gone  to  Ireland, 
as  Stella  had  gone  before,  to  be  near  the 
presence  of  Swift.  Her  life  was  one  of 
deep  seclusion,  chequered  only  by  the  oc- 
casional visits  of  the  man  she  adored, 
each  of  which  she  commemorated  by 
planting  with  her  own  hand  a  laurel  in 
the  garden  where  they  met.  When  all  her 
devotion  and  her  offerings  had  failed  to 
20 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

impress  him,  she  sent  him  remonstrances 
which  reflect  the  agony  of  her  mind : 

"  The  reason  I  write  to  you,"  she  says, 
"  is  because  I  cannot  tell  it  you  should  I 
see  you.  For  when  I  begin  to  complain, 
then  you  are  angry;  and  there  is  some- 
thing in  your  looks  so  awful,  that  it  strikes 
me  dumb.  Oh !  that  you  may  have  but 
so  much  regard  for  me  left  that  this  com- 
plaint may  touch  your  soul  with  pity.  I 
say  as  little  as  ever  I  can.  Did  you  but 
know  what  I  thought,  I  am  sure  it  would 
move  you  to  forgive  me,  and  believe  that  I 
cannot  help  telling  you  this  and  live." 

Swift  replies  with  the  letter  full  of  ex- 
cuses for  not  seeing  her  oftener,  and  ad- 
vises her  to  "  quit  this  scoundrel  island." 
Yet  he  assures  her  in  the  same  breath, 
"  que  jamais  personne  du  monde  a  ete 
aimee,  honoree,  estime*e,  adore"e,  par  votre 
ami  que  vous." 

21 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

The  tragedy  continued  to  deepen  as  it 
approached  the  close.  Eight  years  had 
Vanessa  nursed  in  solitude  the  hopeless 
attachment.  At  length  (in  1723)  she  wrote 
to  Stella  to  ascertain  the  nature  of  the 
connection  between  her  and  Swift.  The 
latter  obtained  the  fatal  letter,  and  rode 
instantly  to  Marley  Abbey,  the  residence 
of  Vanessa.  "  As  he  entered  the  apart- 
ment," to  quote  the  picturesque  language 
Scott  has  used  in  recording  the  scene,  "  the 
sternness  of  his  countenance,  which  was 
peculiarly  formed  to  express  the  stronger 
passions,  struck  the  unfortunate  Vanessa 
with  such  terror,  that  she  could  scarce  ask 
whether  he  would  not  sit  down.  He  an- 
swered by  flinging  a  letter  on  the  table; 
and  instantly  leaving  the  house,  mounted 
his  horse,  and  returned  to  Dublin.  When 
Vanessa  opened  the  packet,  she  found  only 
her  own  letter  to  Stella.  It  was  her  death- 
22 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

warrant.  She  sunk  at  once  under  the 
disappointment  of  the  delayed,  yet  cher- 
ished hopes  which  had  so  long  sickened 
her  heart,  and  beneath  the  unrestrained 
wrath  of  him  for  whose  sake  she  had  in- 
dulged them.  How  long  she  survived  this 
last  interview  is  uncertain,  but  the  time 
does  not  seem  to  have  exceeded  a  few 
weeks." 

Strength  to  revoke  a  will  made  in 
favour  of  Swift,  and  to  sign  another  (dated 
May  1,  1723)  which  divided  her  estate 
between  Bishop  Berkeley  and  Judge  Mar- 
shall, the  poor  young  woman  managed 
to  summon  from  somewhere,  however. 
Berkeley  she  knew  very  slightly,  and  Mar- 
shall scarcely  better.  But  to  them  both  she 
entrusted  as  executors  her  correspondence 
with  Swift,  and  the  poem,  "  Cadenus  and 
Vanessa,"  which  she  ordered  to  be  pub- 
lished after  her  death. 

23 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

Doctor  Johnson,  in  his  "  Life  of  Swift/' 
says  of  Vanessa's  relation  to  the  misan- 
thropic dean,  "  She  was  a  young  woman 
fond  of  literature)  whom  Decanus,  the 
dean  (called  Cadenus  by  transposition  of 
the  letters),  took  pleasure  in  directing  and 
interesting  till,  from  being  proud  of  his 
praise,  she  grew  fond  of  his  person.  Swift 
was  then  about  forty-seven,  at  the  age 
when  vanity  is  strongly  excited  by  the 
amorous  attention  of  a  young  woman." 

The  poem  with  which  these  two  lovers 
are  always  connected,  was  founded,  ac- 
cording to  the  story,  on  an  offer  of  mar- 
riage made  by  Miss  Vanhomrigh  to  Doctor 
Swift.  In  it,  Swift  thus  describes  his 
situation : 

"  Cadenus,  common  forms  apart, 
In  every  scene  had  kept  his  heart ; 
Had  sighed  and  languished,  vowed  and  writ 
For  pastime,  or  to  show  his  wit, 
But  books  and  time  and  state  affairs 
24 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

Had  spoiled  his  fashionable  airs  ; 
He  now  could  praise,  esteem,  approve, 
But  understood  not  what  was  love  : 
His  conduct  might  have  made  him  styled 
A  father  and  the  nymph  his  child. 
That  innocent  delight  he  took 
To  see  the  virgin  mind  her  book, 
Was  but  the  master's  secret  joy 
In  school  to  hear  the  finest  boy." 

That  Swift  was  not  always,  however,  so 
Platonic  and  fatherly  in  his  expressions 
of  affection  for  Vanessa,  is  shown  in  a 
"  Poem  to  Love,"  found  in  Miss  Vanhom- 
righ's  desk  after  her  death,  in  his  hand- 
writing. One  verse  of  this  runs : 

"  In  all  I  wish  how  happy  should  I  be, 

Thou  grand  deluder,  were  it  not  for  thee. 

So  weak  thou  art  that  fools  thy  power  despise, 

And  yet  so  strong,  thou  triumph'st  o'er  the  wise." 

After  the  poor  girl's  unhappy  decease, 
Swift  hid  himself  for  two  months  in  the 
south  of  Ireland.  Stella  was  also  shocked 
by  the  occurrence,  but  when  some  one  re- 

25 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

marked  in  her  presence,  apropos  of  the 
poem  which  had  just  appeared,  that  Va- 
nessa must  have  been  a  remarkable  woman 
to  inspire  such  verses,  she  observed  with 
perfect  truth  that  the  dean  was  quite  capa- 
ble of  writing  charmingly  upon  a  broom- 
stick. 

Meanwhile  Berkeley  was  informed  of 
the  odd  stroke  of  luck  by  which  he  was  to 
gain  a  small  fortune.  Characteristically, 
his  thoughts  turned  now  more  than  ever 
to  his  Bermuda  scheme.  "  This  provi- 
dential event,"  he  wrote,  "  having  made 
many  things  easy  in  my  private  affairs 
which  were  otherwise  before,  I  have  high 
hopes  for  Bermuda." 

Swift  bore  Berkeley  absolutely  no  hard 
feeling  -on  account  of  Vanessa's  substitu- 
tion of  his  name  in  her  will.  He  was  quite 
as  cordial  as  ever.  One  of  the  witty  dean's 
most  remarkable  letters,  addressed  to  Lord 
26 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

Carteret,  at  Bath,  thus  describes  Berkeley's 
previous  career  and  present  mission : 

"  Going  to  England  very  young,  about 
thirteen  years  ago,  the  bearer  of  this  became 
founder  of  a  sect  called  the  Immaterial- 
ists,  by  the  force  of  a  very  curious  book 
upon  that  subject.  .  .  .  He  is  an  absolute 
philosopher  with  regard  to  money,  titles, 
and  power;  and  for  three  years  past  has 
been  struck  with  a  notion  of  founding  a 
university  at  Bermudas  by  a  charter  from 
the  Crown.  .  .  .  He  showed  me  a  little 
tract  which  he  designs  to  publish,  and 
there  your  Excellency  will  see  his  whole 
scheme  of  the  life  academico-philosophical, 
of  a  college  founded  for  Indian  scholars 
and  missionaries,  where  he  most  exorbi- 
tantly proposes  a  whole  hundred  pounds 
a  year  for  himself.  .  .  .  His  heart  will 
be  broke  if  his  deanery  be  not  taken  from 
him,  and  left  to  your  Excellency's  disposal, 

27 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROQFTREES 

I  discouraged  him  by  the  coldness  of  Courts 
and  Ministers,  who  will  interpret  all  this 
as  impossible  and  a  vision;  but  nothing 
will  do." 

The  history  of  Berkeley's  reception  in 
London,  when  he  came  to  urge  his  project, 
shows  convincingly  the  magic  of  the  man's 
presence  and  influence.  His  conquests 
spread  far  and  fast.  In  a  generation 
represented  by  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  the 
scheme  met  with  encouragement  from  all 
sorts  of  people,  subscriptions  soon  reaching 
£5,000,  and  the  list  of  promoters  including 
even  Sir  Robert  himself.  Bermuda  became 
the  fashion  among  the  wits  of  London,  and 
Bolingbroke  wrote  to  Swift  that  he  would 
"  gladly  exchange  Europe  for  its  charms  — 
only  not  in  a  missionary  capacity." 

But  Berkeley  was  not  satisfied  with  mere 
subscriptions,  and  remembering  what  Lord 
Percival  had  said  about  the  protection  and 
28 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

aid  of  government  he  interceded  with 
George  the  First,  and  obtained  royal  en- 
couragement to  hope  for  a  grant  of  £20,000 
to  endow  the  Bermuda  college.  During 
the  four  years  that  followed,  he  lived  in 
London,  negotiating  with  brokers,  and 
otherwise  forwarding  his  enterprise  of  so- 
cial idealism.  With  Queen  Caroline,  con- 
sort of  George  the  Second,  he  used  to  dis- 
pute two  days  a  week  concerning  his 
favourite  plan. 

At  last  his  patience  was  rewarded.  In 
September,  1728,  we  find  him  at  Green- 
wich, ready  to  sail  for  Rhode  Island.  "  To- 
morrow," he  writes  on  September  3  to 
Lord  Percival,  "  we  sail  down  the  river. 
Mr.  James  and  Mr.  Dalton  go  with  me; 
so  doth  my  wife,  a  daughter  of  the  late 
Chief  Justice  Forster,  whom  I  mar- 
ried since  I  saw  your  lordship.  I  chose 
her  for  her  qualities  of  mind,  and  her  un- 

29 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

affected  inclination  to  books.  She  goes 
with  great  thankfulness,  to  live  a  plain 
farmer's  life,  and  wear  stuff  of  her  own 
spinning.  I  have  presented  her  with  a 
spinning-wheel.  Her  fortune  was  £2,000 
originally,  but  travelling  and  exchange 
have  reduced  it  to  less  than  £1,500  English 
money.  I  have  placed  that,  and  about 
£600  of  my  own,  in  South  Sea  annuities." 

Thus  in  the  forty-fourth  year  of  his  life, 
in  deep  devotion  to  his  Ideal,  and  full  of 
glowing  visions  of  a  Fifth  Empire  in  the 
West,  Berkeley  sailed  for  Ehode  Island  in 
a  "  hired  ship  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
tons." 

The  New  England  Courier  of  that  time 
gives  this  picture  of  his  disembarkation 
at  Newport :  "  Yesterday  there  arrived 
here  Dean  Berkeley,  of  Londonderry.  He 
is  a  gentleman  of  middle  stature,  of  an 
agreeable,  pleasant,  and  erect  aspect.  He 
30 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

was  ushered  into  the  town  with  a  great 
number  of  gentlemen,  to  whom  he  behaved 
himself  after  a  very  complaisant  manner." 

So  favourably  was  Berkeley  impressed 
by  Newport  that  he  wrote  to  Lord  Perci- 
val :  "  I  should  not  demur  about  situating 
our  college  here."  And  as  it  turned  out, 
Newport  was  the  place  with  which  Berke- 
ley's scheme  was  to  be  connected  in  history. 
For  it  was  there  that  he  lived  all  three 
years  of  his  stay,  hopefully  awaiting  from 
England  the  favourable  news  that  never 
came. 

In  loyal  remembrance  of  the  palace  of 
his  monarchs,  he  named  his  spacious  home 
in  the  sequestered  valley  Whitehall.  Here 
he  began  domestic  life,  and  became  the 
father  of  a  family.  The  neighbouring 
groves  and  the  cliffs  that  skirt  the  coast 
offered  shade  and  silence  and  solitude  very 
soothing  to  his  spirit,  and  one  wonders  not 

31 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

that  he  wrote,  under  the  projecting  rock 
that  still  bears  his  name,  "  The  Minute 
Philosopher,"  one  of  his  most  noted  works. 
The  friends  with  whom  he  had  crossed  the 
ocean  went  to  stay  in  Boston,  but  no  solici- 
tations could  withdraw  him  from  the  quiet 
of  his  island  home.  "  After  my  long 
fatigue  of  business,"  he  told  Lord  Perci- 
val,  "  this  retirement  is  very  agreeable  to 
me ;  and  my  wife  loves  a  country  life  and 
books  as  well  as  to  pass  her  time  contin- 
ually and  cheerfully  without  any  other 
conversation  than  her  husband  and  the 
dead."  For  the  wife  was  a  mystic  and  a 
quietist. 

But  though  Berkeley  waited  patiently 
for  developments  which  should  denote  the 
realisation  of  his  hopes,  he  waited  always 
in  vain.  From  the  first  he  had  so  planned 
his  enterprise  that  it  was  at  the  mercy  of 
Sir  Robert  Walpole ;  and  at  last  came  the 
82 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

crisis  of  the  project,  with  which  the  astute 
financier  had  never  really  sympathised. 
Early  in  1730,  Walpole  threw  off  the 
mask.  "  If  you  put  the  question  to  me 
as  a  minister,"  he  wrote  Lord  Percival, 
"  I  must  and  can  assure  you  that  the  money 
shall  most  undoubtedly  be  paid  —  as  soon 
as  suits  with  public  convenience;  but  if 
you  ask  me  as  a  friend  whether  Dean 
Berkeley  should  continue  in  America,  ex- 
pecting the  payment  of  £200,000,  I  advise 
him  by  all  means  to  return  to  Europe,  and 
to  give  up  his  present  expectations." 

When  acquainted  by  his  friend  Percival 
with  this  frank  statement,  Berkeley  ac- 
cepted the  blow  as  a  philosopher  should. 
Brave  and  resolutely  patient,  he  prepared 
for  departure.  His  books  he  left  as  a  gift 
to  the  library  of  Yale  College,  and  his 
farm  of  Whitehall  was  made  over  to  the 
same  institution,  to  found  three  scholar- 

33 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

ships  for  the  encouragement  of  Greek  and 
Latin  study.  His  visit  was  thus  far  from 
being  barren  of  results.  He  supplied  a 
decided  stimulus  to  higher  education  in 
the  colonies,  in  that  he  gave  out  counsel 
and  help  to  the  men  already  working 
for  the  cause  of  learning  in  the  new  coun- 
try. And  he  helped  to  form  in  Newport 
a  philosophical  reunion,  the  effects  of 
which  were  long  felt. 

In  the  autumn  of  1731  he  sailed  from 
Boston  for  London,  where  he  arrived  in 
January  of  the  next  year.  There  a  bishop- 
ric and  twenty  years  of  useful  and  honour- 
able labour  awaited  him.  He  died  at  Ox- 
ford, whence  he  had  removed  from  his  see 
at  Cloyne,  on  Sunday  evening,  January 
14,  1753,  while  reading  aloud  to  his  family 
the  burial  service  portion  of  Corinthians. 
He  was  buried  in  the  Cathedral  of  Christ 
Church. 
34 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

Of  the  traces  he  left  at  Newport,  there 
still  remain,  beside  the  house,  a  chair  in 
which  he  was  wont  to  write,  a  few  books 
and  papers,  the  organ  presented  by  him  to 
Trinity  Church,  the  big  family  portrait, 
by  Smibert  —  and  the  little  grave  in 
Trinity  churchyard,  where,  on  the  south 
side  of  the  Kay  monument,  sleeps  "  Lucia 
Berkeley,  obi  it,  the  fifth  of  September, 
1731."  Moreover  the  memory  of  the  man's 
beautiful,  unselfish  life  pervades  this  sec- 
tion of  Rhode  Island,  and  the  story  of  his 
sweetness  and  patience  under  a  keen  and 
unexpected  disappointment  furnishes  one 
of  the  most  satisfying  pages  in  our  early 
history. 

The  life  of  Berkeley  is  indeed  greater 
than  anything  that  he  did,  and  one  wonders 
not  as  one  explores  the  young  preacher's 
noble  and  endearing  character  that  the  dis- 
traught Vanessa  fastened  upon  him,  though 

35 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

she  knew  him  only  by  reputation,  as  one 
who  would  make  it  his  sacred  duty  to  do  all 
in  his  power  to  set  her  memory  right  in  a 
censorious  world. 


36 


THE  MAID  OF  MARBLEHEAD 

all  the  romantic  narratives  which 
enliven  the  pages  of  early  colonial 
history,  none  appeals  more  directly 
to  the  interest  and  imagination  of  the 
lover  of  what  is  picturesque  than  the  story 
of  Agnes  Surriage,  the  Maid  of  Marble- 
head.  The  tale  is  so  improbable,  according 
to  every-day  standards,  so  in  form  with  the 
truest  sentiment,  and  so  calculated  to  sat- 
isfy every  exaction  of  literary  art,  that 
even  the  most  credulous  might  be  forgiven 
for  ascribing  it  to  the  fancy  of  the  ro- 
mancer rather  than  to  the  research  of  the 
historian. 

Yet  when  one  remembers  that  the  scene 

37 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOQFTKEES 

of  the  first  act  of  Agnes  Surriage's  life 
drama  is  laid  in  quaint  old  Marblehead, 
the  tale  itself  instantly  gains  in  credibility. 
For  nothing  would  be  too  romantic  to  fit 
Marblehead.  This  town  is  fantastic  in  the 
extreme,  builded,  to  quote  Miss  Alice 
Brown,  who  has  written  delightfully  of 
Agnes  and  her  life,  "  as  if  by  a  generation 
of  autocratic  landowners,  each  with  a 
wilful  bee  in  his  bonnet."  *  For  Marble- 
head  is  no  misnomer,  and  the  early  settlers 
had  to  plant  their  houses  and  make  their 
streets  as  best  they  could.  As  a  matter  of 
stern  fact,  every  house  in  Marblehead  had 
to  be  like  the  wise  man's  in  the  Bible: 
"  built  upon  a  rock."  The  dwellings  them- 
selves were  founded  upon  solid  ledges, 
while  the  principal  streets  followed  the  nat- 
ural valleys  between.  The  smaller  divid- 

1  "Three  Heroines  of  New  England  Romance." 
Little,  Brown  &  Co. 

38 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

ing  paths  led  each  and  every  one  of  them 
to  the  impressive  old  Town  House,  and  to 
that  other  comfortable  centre  of  social  in- 
terests, the  Fountain  Inn,  with  its  near-by 
pump.  This  pump,  by  the  bye,  has  a  very 
real  connection  with  the  story  of  Agnes 
Surriage,  for  it  was  here,  according  to  one 
legend,  that  Charles  Henry  Frankland 
first  saw  the  maid  who  is  the  heroine  of 
our  story. 

The  gallant  Sir  Harry  was  at  this  time 
(1742)  collector  of  the  port  of  Boston, 
a  place  to  which  he  had  been  appointed 
shortly  before,  by  virtue  of  his  family's 
great  influence  at  the  court  of  George  the 
Second.  No  more  distinguished  house  than 
that  of  Frankland  was  indeed  to  be  found 
in  all  England  at  this  time.  A  lineal  de- 
scendant of  Oliver  Cromwell,  our  hero  was 
born  in  Bengal,  May  10,  171 6,  during  his 
father's  residence  abroad  as  governor  of  the 

39 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

East  India  Company's  factory.  The  per- 
sonal attractiveness  of  Frankland's  whole 
family  was  marked.  It  is  even  said  that  a 
lady  of  this  house  was  sought  in  marriage 
by  Charles  the  Second,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  a  Capulet-Montague  feud  must  ever 
have  existed  between  the  line  of  Cromwell 
and  that  of  Charles  Stuart, 

Young  Harry,  too,  was  clever  as  well 
as  handsome.  The  eldest  of  his  father's 
seven  sons,  he  was  educated  as  befitted  the 
heir  to  the  title  and  to  the  family  estate 
at  Thirkleby  and  Mattersea.  He  knew  the 
French  and  Latin  languages  well,  and, 
what  is  more  to  the  point,  used  his  mother 
tongue  with  grace  and  elegance.  Botany 
and  landscape-gardening  were  his  chief 
amusements,  while  with  the  great  litera- 
ture of  the  day  he  was  as  familiar  as  with 
the  great  men  who  made  it. 

As  early  as  1738,  when  he  was  twenty- 
40 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

two,  he  had  come  into  possession  of  an 
ample  fortune,  but  when  opportunity  of- 
fered to  go  to  America  with  Shirley,  his 
friend,  he  accepted  the  opening  with  avid- 
ity. Both  young  men,  therefore,  entered 
the  same  year  (1741)  on  their  offices,  the 
one  as  Collector  of  the  Port,  and  the  other 
as  Governor  of  the  Colony.  And  both  rep- 
resented socially  the  highest  rank  of  that 
day  in  America. 

"  A  baronet,"  says  Reverend  Elias  Na- 
son,  from  whose  admirable  picture  of  Bos- 
ton in  Frankland's  time  all  writers  must 
draw  for  reliable  data  concerning  our  hero, 
—  "a  baronet  was  then  approached  with 
greatest  deference ;  a  coach  and  four,  with 
an  armorial  bearing  and  liveried  servants, 
was  a  munition  against  indignity ;  in  those 
dignitaries  who,  in  brocade  vest,  gold  lace 
coat,  broad  ruffled  sleeves,  and  small- 
clothes, who,  with  three-cornered  hat  and 

41 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

powdered  wig,  side-arms  and  silver  shoe 
buckles,  promenaded  Queen  Street  and  the 
Mall,  spread  themselves  through  the  King's 
Chapel,  or  discussed  the  measures  of  the 
Pelhams,  Walpole,  and  Pitt  at  the  Rose 
and  Crown,  as  much  of  aristocratic  pride, 
as  much  of  courtly  consequence  displayed 
itself  as  in  the  frequenters  of  Hyde  Park 
or  Regent  Street." 

This,  then,  was  the  manner  of  man  who, 
to  transact  some  business  connected  with 
Marblehead's  picturesque  Fort  Sewall, 
then  just  a-building,  came  riding  down 
to  the  rock-bound  coast  on  the  day  our 
story  opens,  and  lost  his  heart  at  the  Foun- 
tain Inn,  where  he  had  paused  for  a  long 
draught  of  cooling  ale. 

For  lo !  scrubbing  the  tavern  floor  there 

knelt  before  him  a  beautiful  child-girl  of 

sixteen,  with  black  curling  hair,  dark  eyes, 

and  a  voice  which  proved  to  be  of  bird- 

42 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

like  sweetness  when  the  maiden,  glancing 
up,  gave  her  good-day  to  the  gallant's 
greeting.  The  girl's  feet  were  bare,  and 
this  so  moved  Frankland's  compassion 
that  he  gently  gave  her  a  piece  of  gold  with 
which  to  buy  shoes  and  stockings,  and  rode 
thoughtfully  away  to  conduct  his  business 
at  the  fort. 

Yet  he  did  not  forget  that  charming 
child  just  budding  into  winsome  woman- 
hood whom  he  had  seen  performing  with 
patience  and  grace  the  duties  that  fell  to 
her  lot  as  the  poor  daughter  of  some  hon- 
est, hard-working  fisherfolk  of  the  town. 
When  he  happened  again  to  be  in  Marble- 
head  on  business,  he  inquired  at  once  for 
her,  and  then,  seeing  her  feet  still  without 
shoes  and  stockings,  asked  a  bit  teasingly 
what  she  had  done  with  the  money  he  gave 
her.  Quite  frankly  she  replied,  blushing 
the  while,  that  the  shoes  and  stockings  were 

43 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAKD  EOOFTREES 

bought,  but  that  she  kept  them  to  wear  to 
meeting.  Soon  after  this  the  young  col- 
lector went  to  search  out  Agnes's  parents, 
Edward  and  Mary  Surriage,  from  whom 
he  succeeded  in  obtaining  permission  to 
remove  their  daughter  to  Boston  to  be  edu- 
cated as  his  ward. 

When  one  reads  in  the  old  records  the 
entries  for  Frankland's  salary,  and  finds 
that  they  mount  up  to  not  more  than  £100 
sterling  a  year,  one  wonders  that  the  young 
nobleman  should  have  been  so  ready  to 
take  upon  himself  the  expenses  of  a  girl's 
elegant  education.  But  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  gallant  Harry  had  money 
in  his  own  right,  besides  many  perquisites 
of  office,  which  made  his  income  a  really 
splendid  one.  Certainly  he  spared  no  ex- 
pense upon  his  ward.  She  was  taught 
reading,  writing,  grammar,  music,  and  em- 
broidery by  the  best  tutors  the  town  could 
44 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

provide,  and  she  grew  daily,  we  are  told, 
in  beauty  and  maidenly  charm. 

Yet  in  acquiring  these  gifts  and  graces 
she  did  not  lose  her  childish  sweetness 
and  simplicity,  nor  the  pious  counsel  of 
her  mother,  and  the  careful  care  of  her 
Marblehead  pastor.  Thus  several  years 
passed  by,  years  in  which  Agnes  often  vis- 
ited with  her  gentle  guardian  the  residence 
in  Roxbury  of  Governor  Shirley  and  his 
gifted  wife,  as  well  as  the  stately  Royall 
place  out  on  the  Medford  road. 

The  reader  who  is  familiar  with  Mr, 
Bynner's  story  of  Agnes  Surriage  will  re- 
call how  delightfully  Mrs.  Shirley,  the 
wife  of  the  governor,  is  introduced  into  his 
romance,  and  will  recollect  with  pleasure 
his  description  of  Agnes's  ride  to  Roxbury 
in  the  collector's  coach.  This  old  mansion 
is  now  called  the  Governor  Eustis  House, 
and  there  are  those  still  living  who  remem- 

45 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTEEES 

ber  when  Madam  Eustis  lived  there.  This 
grand  dame  wore  a  majestic  turban,  and 
the  tradition  still  lingers  of  madame's  pet 
toad,  decked  on  gala  days  with  a  blue  rib- 
bon. Now  the  old  house  is  sadly  dilapi- 
dated; it  is  shorn  of  its  piazzas,  the  sign 
"  To  Let "  hangs  often  in  the  windows, 
and  the  cupola  is  adorned  with  well-filled 
clothes-lines.  Partitions  have  cut  the 
house  into  tenements;  one  runs  through 
the  hall,  but  the  grand  old  staircase  and 
the  smaller  one  are  still  there,  and  the  mar- 
ble floor,  too,  lends  dignity  to  the  back  hall. 
A  few  of  the  carved  balusters  are  missing, 
carried  away  by  relic  hunters.  In  this 
house,  which  was  the  residence  of  Gov- 
ernors Shirley  and  Eustis,  Washington, 
Hamilton,  Burr,  Franklin,  and  other  nota- 
bles were  entertained.  The  old  place  is 
now  entirely  surrounded  by  modern  dwell- 
ing-houses, and  the  pilgrim  who  searches 
46 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

for  it  must  leave  the  Mount  Pleasant  elec- 
tric car  at  Shirley  Street. 

Yet,  though  Agnes  as  a  maid  was  re- 
ceived by  the  most  aristocratic  people  of 
Boston,  the  ladies  of  the  leading  families 
refused  to  countenance  her  when  she 
became  a  fine  young  woman  whom  Sir 
Harry  Frankland  loved  but  cared  not  to 
marry.  That  her  protector  had  not  meant 
at  first  to  wrong  the  girl  he  had  befriended 
seems  fairly  certain,  but  many  circum- 
stances, such  as  the  death  of  Agnes's  father 
and  Frankland's  own  sudden  elevation  to 
the  baronetcy,  may  be  held  to  have  con- 
spired to  force  them  into  the  situation  for 
which  Agnes  was  to  pay  by  many  a  day 
of  tears  and  Sir  Harry  by  many  a  night  of 
bitter  self-reproach. 

For  Frankland  was  far  from  being  a 
libertine.  And  that  he  sincerely  loved  the 
beautiful  maid  of  Marblehead  is  certain, 

47 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

He  has  come  down  to  us  as  one  of  the  most 
knightly  men  of  his  time,  a  gentleman  and 
a  scholar,  who  was  also  a  sincere  follower 
of  the  Church  of  England  and  its  teach- 
ings. Both  in  manner  and  person  he  is 
said  to  have  greatly  resembled  the  Earl  of 
Chesterfield,  and  his  diary  as  well  as  his 
portrait  show  him  to  have  been  at  once 
sensitive  and  virile ;  quite  the  man,  indeed, 
very  effectually  to  fascinate  the  low-born 
beauty  he  had  taught  to  love  him. 

The  indignation  of  the  ladies  in  town 
toward  Frankland  and  his  ward  made  the 
baronet  prefer  at  this  stage  of  the  story  ru- 
ral Hopkinton  to  censorious  Boston.  Rev- 
erend Roger  Price,  known  to  us  as  rector 
of  King's  Chapel,  had  already  land  and  a 
mission  church  in  this  village,  and  so,  when 
Boston  frowned  too  pointedly,  Frankland 
purchased  four  hundred  odd  acres  of  him, 
and  there  built,  in  1751,  a  commodious 
48 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

mansion-house.  The  following  year  he  and 
Agnes  took  up  their  abode  on  the  place. 
Here  Frankland  passed  his  days,  content- 
edly pursuing  his  horticultural  fad,  an- 
gling, hunting,  overseeing  his  dozen  slaves, 
and  reading  with  his  intelligent  companion 
the  latest  works  of  Richardson,  Steele, 
Swift,  Addison,  and  Pope,  sent  over  in 
big  boxes  from  England. 

The  country  about  Hopkinton  was  then 
as  to-day  a  wonder  of  hill  and  valley, 
meadow  and  stream,  while  only  a  dozen 
miles  or  so  from  Frankland  Hall  was  the 
famous  Wayside  Inn.  That  Sir  Harry's 
Arcady  never  came  to  bore  him  was,  per- 
haps, due  to  this  last  fact.  Whenever 
guests  were  desired  the  men  from  Boston 
could  easily  ride  out  to  the  inn  and  canter 
over  to  the  Hall,  to  enjoy  the  good  wines 
and  the  bright  talk  the  place  afforded. 
Then  the  village  rector  was  always  to  be 

49 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

counted  on  for  companionship  and  breezy 
chat.  It  is  significant  that  Sir  Harry  care- 
fully observed  all  the  forms  of  his  relig- 
ion, and  treated  Agnes  with  the  respect 
due  a  wife,  though  he  still  continued  to 
neglect  the  one  duty  which  would  have 
made  her  really  happy. 

A  lawsuit  called  the  two  to  England 
in  1754.  At  Frankland's  mother's  home, 
where  the  eager  son  hastened  to  bring  his 
beloved  one,  Agnes  was  once  more  sub- 
jected to  martyrdom  and  social  ostracism. 
As  quickly  as  they  could  get  away,  there- 
fore, the  young  people  journeyed  to  Lis- 
bon, a  place  conspicuous,  even  in  that  day 
of  moral  laxity,  for  its  tolerance  of  the 
alliance  libre.  Henry  Fielding  (who  died 
in  the  town)  has  photographically  de- 
scribed for  all  times  its  gay,  sensuous  life. 
Into  this  unwholesome  atmosphere,  quite 
new  to  her,  though  she  was  neither  maid 
50 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

nor  wife,  it  was  that  the  sweet  Agnes  was 
thrust  by  Erankland.  Very  soon  he  was 
to  perceive  the  mistake  of  this,  as  well  as 
of  several  other  phases  of  his  selfishness. 

On  All  Saint's  Day  morning,  1755, 
when  the  whole  populace,  from  beggar  to 
priest,  courtier  to  lackey,  was  making  its 
way  to  church,  the  town  of  Lisbon  was 
shaken  to  its  foundations  by  an  earthquake. 
The  shock  came  about  ten  o'clock,  just  as 
the  Misericordia  of  the  mass  was  being 
sung  in  the  crowded  churches ;  and  Frank- 
land,  who  was  riding  with  a  lady  on  his 
way  to  the  religious  ceremony,  was  im- 
mersed with  his  companion  in  the  ruins  of 
some  falling  houses.  The  horses  attached 
to  their  carriage  were  instantly  killed,  and 
the  lady,  in  her  terror  and  pain,  bit  through 
the  sleeve  of  her  escort's  red  broadcloth 
coat,  tearing  the  flesh  with  her  teeth. 
Frankland  had  some  awful  moments  for 

51 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

thought  as  he  lay  there  pinned  down  by 
the  fallen  stones,  and  tortured  by  the  pain 
in  his  arm. 

Meanwhile  Agnes,  waiting  at  home,  was 
prey  to  most  terrible  anxiety.  As  soon  as 
the  surging  streets  would  permit  a  foot 
passenger,  she  ran  out  with  all  the  money 
she  could  lay  hands  on,  to  search  for  her 
dear  Sir  Harry.  By  a  lucky  chance,  she 
came  to  the  very  spot  where  he  was  lying 
white  with  pain,  and  by  her  offers  of 
abundant  reward  and  by  gold,  which  she 
fairly  showered  on  the  men  near  by,  she 
succeeded  in  extricating  him  from  his  fear- 
ful plight.  Tenderly  he  was  borne  to  a 
neighbouring  house,  and  there,  as  soon  as 
he  could  stand,  a  priest  was  summoned  to 
tie  the  knot  too  long  ignored.  He  had 
vowed,  while  pinned  down  by  the  weight 
of  stone,  to  amend  his  life  and  atone  to 
Agnes,  if  God  in  his  mercy  should  see  fit 
52 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

to  deliver  him,  and  he  wasted  not  a  moment 
in  executing  his  pledge  to  Heaven.  That 
his  spirit  had  been  effectually  chastened, 
one  reads  between  the  lines  of  this  entry 
in  his  diary,  which  may  still  be  seen  in  the 
rooms  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical 
Society  in  Boston :  "  Hope  my  providential 
escape  will  have  a  lasting  good  effect  upon 
my  mind." 

In  order  to  make  his  marriage  doubly 
sure,  he  had  the  ceremony  performed  again 
by  a  clergyman  of  his  own  church  on  board 
the  ship  which  he  took  at  once  for  Eng- 
land. Then  the  newly  married  pair  pro- 
ceeded once  more  to  Frankland's  home,  and 
this  time  there  were  kisses  instead  of  cold- 
ness for  them  both.  Business  in  Lisbon 
soon  called  them  back  to  the  Continent, 
however,  and  it  was  from  Belem  that  they 
sailed  in  April,  1750,  for  Boston,  where 
both  were  warmly  welcomed  by  their  for- 
mer friends.  53 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEEt 

In  the  celebrated  Clarke  mansion,  on 
Garden  Court  Street,  which  Sir  Harry 
purchased  October  5,  1756,  for  £1,200,  our 
heroine  now  reigned  queen.  This  house, 
three  stories  high,  with  inlaid  floors,  carved 
mantels,  and  stairs  so  broad  and  low  that 
Sir  Harry  could,  and  did,  ride  his  pony  up 
and  down  them,  was  the  wonder  of  the 
time.  It  contained  twenty-six  rooms,  and 
was  in  every  respect  a  marvel  of  luxury. 
That  Agnes  did  not  forget  her  own  people, 
nor  scorn  to  receive  them  in  her  fine  house, 
one  is  pleased  to  note.  While  here  she 
practically  supported,  records  show,  her 
sister's  children,  and  she  welcomed  always 
when  he  came  ashore  from  his  voyages  her 
brother  Isaac,  a  poor  though  honest  sea- 
man. 

Frankland's  health  was  not,  however,  all 
that  both  might  have  wished,  and  the  en- 
tries in  the  diaries  deal,  at  this  time,  al- 
54 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

most  entirely  with  recipes  and  soothing 
drinks.  In  July,  1757,  he  sought,  there- 
fore, the  post  of  consul-general  to  Lisbon, 
where  the  climate  seemed  to  him  to  suit 
his  condition,  and  there,  sobered  city  that 
it  now  was,  the  two  again  took  up  their 
residence.  Only  once  more,  in  1763,  was 
Sir  Harry  to  be  in  Boston.  Then  he  came 
for  a  visit,  staying  for  a  space  in  Hopkin- 
ton,  as  well  as  in  the  city.  The  following 
year  he  returned  to  the  old  country,  and 
in  Bath,  where  he  was  drinking  the  waters, 
he  died  January  2,  1768,  at  the  age  of 
fifty-two. 

Agnes  almost  immediately  came  back  to 
Boston,  and,  with  her  sister  and  her  sister's 
children,  took  up  her  residence  at  Hopkin- 
ton.  There  she  remained,  living  a  peace- 
ful, happy  life  among  her  flowers,  her 
friends,  and  her  books,  until  the  outbreak 
of  the  Revolution,  when  it  seemed  to  her 

55 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

wise  to  go  in  to  her  town  house.  She 
entered  Boston,  defended  by  a  guard  of 
six  sturdy  soldiers,  and  was  cordially  re- 
ceived by  the  officers  in  the  beleaguered 
city,  especially  by  Burgoyne,  whom  she 
had  known  in  Lisbon.  During  the  battle 
of  Bunker  Hill,  she  helped  nurse  wounded 
King's  men,  brought  to  her  in  her  big 
dining-room  on  Garden  Court  Street.  As 
an  ardent  Tory,  however,  she  was  persona 
non  grata  in  the  colony,  and  she  soon  found 
it  convenient  to  sail  for  England,  where, 
until  1782,  she  resided  on  the  estate  of  the 
Frankland  family. 

At  this  point,  Agnes  ceases  in  a  way  to 
be  the  proper  heroine  of  our  romance,  for, 
contrary  to  the  canons  of  Jove-story  art, 
she  married  again,  —  Mr.  John  Drew,  a 
rich  banker,  of  Chichester,  being  the  happy 
man.  And  at  Chichester  she  died  in  one 
year's  time. 
56 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

The  Hopkinton  home  fell,  in  the  course 
of  time,  into  the  hands  of  the  Reverend 
Mr.  Nason,  who  was  to  be  Frankland's 
biographer,  and  who,  when  the  original 
house  was  destroyed  by  fire  (January  3, 
1858),  built  a  similar  mansion  on  the  same 
site.  Here  the  Frankland  relics  were 
carefully  preserved,  —  the  fireplace,  the 
family  portrait  (herewith  reproduced). 
Sir  Harry's  silver  knee  buckles,  and  the 
famous  broadcloth  coat,  from  the  sleeve  of 
which  the  unfortunate  lady  had  torn  a 
piece  with  her  teeth  on  the  day  of  the  Lis- 
bon disaster.  This  coat,  we  are  told,  was 
brought  back  to  Hopkinton  by  Sir  Harry, 
and  hung  in  one  of  the  remote  chambers  of 
the  house,  where  each  year,  till  his  de- 
parture for  the  last  time  from  the  pleasant 
village,  he  was  wont  to  pass  the  anniver- 
sary of  the  earthquake  in  fasting,  humilia- 
tion, and  prayer.  The  coat,  and  all  the 

57 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

other  relics,  were  lost  in  April,  1902,  when, 
for  the  second  time,  Frankland  Hall  was 
razed  by  fire. 

The  ancient  Fountain  Inn,  with  its 
"  flapping  sign,"  and  the  "  spreading  elm 
below/7  long  since  disappeared,  and  its 
well,  years  ago  filled  up,  was  only  acci- 
dentally discovered  at  a  comparatively 
recent  date,  when  some  workmen  were  dig- 
ging a  post  hole.  It  was  then  restored  as 
an  interesting  landmark.  This  inn  was 
a  favourite  resort,  legends  tell  us,  for 
jovial  sea  captains  as  well  as  for  the  gentry 
of  the  town.  There  are  even  traditions  that 
pirates  bold  and  smugglers  sly  at  times 
found  shelter  beneath  its  sloping  roof. 
Yet  none  of  the  many  stories  with  which 
its  ruins  are  connected  compares  in  interest 
and  charm  to  the  absolutely  true  one  given 
us  by  history  of  Fair  Agnes,  the  Maid  of 
Marblehoad. 
58 


AN   AMERICAN  -  BORN   BARONET 


of  the  most  picturesque  houses 
in  all  Middlesex  County  is  the 
Royall  house  at  Medford,  a  place 
to  which  Sir  Harry  Frankland  and  his 
lady  used  often  to  resort.  Few  of  the  great 
names  in  colonial  history  are  lacking,  in- 
deed, in  the  list  of  guests  who  were  here 
entertained  in  the  brave  days  of  old. 

The  house  stands  on  the  left-hand  side 
of  the  old  Boston  Road  as  you  approach 
Medford,  and  to-day  attracts  the  admira- 
tion of  electric  car  travellers  just  as  a 
century  and  a  half  ago  it  was  the  focus 
for  all  stage  passenger's  eyes.  Externally 
the  building  presents  three  stories,  the 

59 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

upper  tier  of  windows  being,  as  is  usual 
in  houses  of  even  a  much  later  date,  smaller 
than  those  underneath.  The  house  is  of 
brick,  but  is  on  three  sides  entirely 
sheathed  in  wood,  while  the  south  end 
stands  exposed.  Like  several  of  the  houses 
we  are  noting,  it  seems  to  turn  its  back  on 
the  high  road.  I  am,  however,  inclined 
to  a  belief  that  the  Royall  house  set  the 
fashion  in  this  matter,  for  Isaac,  the 
Indian  nabob,  was  just  the  man  to  assume 
an  attitude  of  fine  indifference  to  the  world 
outside  his  gates.  When  in  1837,  he 
came,  a  successful  Antigua  merchant,  to 
establish  his  seat  here  in  old  Charlestown, 
and  to  rule  on  his  large  estate,  sole  mon- 
arch of  twenty-seven  slaves,  he  probably 
felt  quite  indifferent,  if  not  superior,  to 
strangers  and  casual  passers-by. 

His  petition  of  December,  1737,  in  re- 


60 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTBEES 

gard  to  the  "  chattels  "  in  his  train,  ad- 
dressed to  the  General  Court,  reads : 

"  Petition  of  Isaac  Royall,  late  of  An- 
tigua, now  of  Charlestown,  in  the  county 
of  Middlesex,  that  he  removed  from  An- 
tigua and  brought  with  him  among  other 
things  and  chattels  a  parcel  of  negroes, 
designed  for  his  own  use,  and  not  any  of 
them  for  merchandise.  He  prays  that  he 
may  not  be  taxed  with  impost." 

The  brick  quarters  which  the  slaves  oc- 
cupied are  situated  on  the  south  side  of 
the  mansion,  and  front  upon  the  court- 
yard, one  side  of  which  they  enclose.  These 
may  be  seen  on  the  extreme  right  of  the 
picture,  and  will  remind  the  reader  who 
is  familiar  with  Washington's  home  at 
Mount  Vernon  of  the  quaint  little  stone 
buildings  in  which  the  Father  of  his 
Country  was  wont  to  house  his  slaves. 
The  slave  buildings  in  Medford  have  re- 

6J 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

mained  practically  unchanged,  and  accord- 
ing to  good  authority  are  the  last  visible 
relics  of  slavery  in  New  England. 

The  Royall  estate  offered  a  fine  example 
of  the  old-fashioned  garden.  Emit  trees 
and  shrubbery,  pungent  box  bordering 
trim  gravel  paths,  and  a  wealth  of  sweet- 
scented  roses  and  geraniums  were  here  to 
be  found.  Even  to-day  the  trees,  the  ruins 
of  the  flower-beds,  and  the  relics  of  mag- 
nificent vines,  are  imposing  as  one  walks 
from  the  street  gate  seventy  paces  back  to 
the  house-door. 

The  carriage  visitor  —  and  in  the  old 
days  all  the  Royall  guests  came  under  this 
head  —  either  alighted  by  the  front  en- 
trance or  passed  by  the  broad  drive  under 
the  shade  of  the  fine  old  elms  around  into 
the  courtyard  paved  with  small  white  peb- 
bles. The  driveway  has  now  become  a  side 
street,  and  what  was  once  an  enclosed  gar- 
62 


SIMMER -HOUSE,    ROYALL    ESTATE,    MEDFORD,    MASS. 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

den  of  half  an  acre  or  more,  with  walks, 
fruit,  and  a  summer-house  at  the  farther 
extremity,  is  now  the  site  of  modern  dwel- 
lings. 

This  summer-house,  long  the  favour- 
ite resort  of  the  family  and  their  guests, 
was  a  veritable  curiosity  in  its  way.  Placed 
upon  an  artificial  mound  with  two  terraces, 
and  reached  by  broad  nights  of  red  sand- 
stone steps,  it  was  architecturally  a  model 
of  its  kind.  Hither,  to  pay  their  court  to  the 
daughters  of  the  house,  used  to  come  George 
Erving  and  the  young  Sir  William  Pep- 
perell,  and  if  the  dilapidated  walls  (now 
taken  down,  but  still  carefully  preserved) 
could  speak,  they  might  tell  of  many  an 
historic  love  tryst.  The  little  house  is 
octagonal  in  form,  and  on  its  bell-shaped 
roof,  surmounted  by  a  cupola,  there  poises 
what  was  originally  a  figure  of  Mercury. 
At  present,  however,  the  statue,  bereft  of 

63 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

both  wings  and  arms,  cannot  be  said 
greatly  to  resemble  the  dashing  god. 

The  exterior  of  the  summer-house  is 
highly  ornamented  with  Ionic  pilasters, 
and  taken  as  a  whole  is  quaintly  ruinous. 
It  is  interesting  to  discover  that  it  was 
utility  that  led  to  the  elevation  of  the 
mound,  within  which  was  an  ice-house! 
And  to  get  at  the  ice  the  slaves  went 
through  a  trap-door  in  the  floor  of  this 
Greek  structure ! 

Isaac  Royall,  the  builder  of  the  fine  old 
mansion,  did  not  long  live  to  enjoy  his 
noble  estate,  but  he  was  succeeded  by  a 
second  Isaac,  who,  though  a  "  colonel,"  was 
altogether  inclined  to  take  more  care  for 
his  patrimony  than  for  his  king.  When  the 
Revolution  began,  Colonel  Royall  fell  upon 
evil  times.  Appointed  a  councillor  by 
mandamus,  he  declined  serving  "  from 
timidity,"  as  Gage  says  to  Lord  Dart- 
64 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

mouth.  Roy  all's  own  account  of  his  move- 
ments after  the  beginning  of  "  these  trou- 
bles," is  such  as  to  confirm  the  governor's 
opinion. 

He  had  prepared,  it  seems,  to  take  pas- 
sage for  the  West  Indies,  intending  to  em- 
bark from  Salem  for  Antigua,  but  having 
gone  into  Boston  the  Sunday  previous  to 
the  battle  of  Lexington,  and  remained  there 
until  that  affair  occurred,  he  was  by  the 
course  of  events  shut  up  in  the  town.  He 
sailed  for  Halifax  very  soon,  still  intend- 
ing, as  he  says,  to  go  to  Antigua,  but  on 
the  arrival  of  his  son-in-law,  George  Er- 
ving,and  his  daughter,  with  the  troops  from 
Boston,  he  was  by  them  persuaded  to  sail 
for  England,  whither  his  other  son-in-law, 
Sir  William  Pepperell  (grandson  of  the 
hero  of  Louisburg),  had  preceded  him.  It 
is  with  this  young  Sir  William  Pepperell 
that  our  story  particularly  deals. 

65 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

The  first  Sir  William  had  been  what  is 
called  a  "  self-made  man,"  and  had  raised 
himself  from  the  ranks  of  the  soldiery 
through  native  genius  backed  by  strength  of 
will.  His  father  is  first  noticed  in  the  an- 
nals of  the  Isles  of  Shoals.  The  mansion 
now  seen  in  Kittery  Point  was  built,  in- 
deed, partly  by  this  oldest  Pepperell  known 
to  us,  and  partly  by  his  more  eminent  son. 
The  building  was  once  much  more  extensive 
than  it  now  appears,  having  been  some 
years  ago  shortened  at  either  end.  Until  the 
death  of  the  elder  Pepperell,  in  1734,  the 
house  was  occupied  by  his  own  and  his 
son's  families.  The  lawn  in  front  reached 
to  the  sea,  and  an  avenue  a  quarter  of  a 
mile  in  length,  bordered  by  fine  old  trees, 
led  to  the  neighbouring  house  of  Colonel 
Sparhawk,  east  of  the  village  church.  The 
first  Sir  William,  by  his  will,  made  the 
son  of  his  daughter  Elizabeth  and  of  Colo- 
66 


ROYALL    HOUSE.    MEDFORD,    MASS. 


PKPPERELL    HOUSE,    KITTERY,    MAINE 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTEEES 

nel  Sparhawk,  his  residuary  legatee,  re- 
quiring him  at  the  same  time  to  relinquish 
the  name  of  Sparhawk  for  that  of  Pep- 
erell.  Thus  it  was  that  the  baronetcy, 
extinct  with  the  death  of  the  hero  of  Louis- 
burg,  was  revived  by  the  king,  in  1774, 
for  the  benefit  of  this  grandson. 

In  the  Essex  Institute  at  Salem,  is  pre- 
served a  two-thirds  length  picture  of  the 
first  Sir  William  Pepperell,  painted  in 
1751  by  Smibert,  when  the  baronet  was  in 
London.  Of  this  picture,  Hawthorne  once 
wrote  the  humourous  description  which  fol- 
lows :  "  Sir  William  Pepperell,  in  coat, 
waistcoat  and  breeches,  all  of  scarlet  broad- 
cloth, is  in  the  cabinet  of  the  Society ;  he 
holds  a  general's  truncheon  in  his  right 
hand,  and  points  his  left  toward  the  army 
of  New  Englanders  before  the  walls  of 
Louisburg.  A  bomb  is  represented  as  f  al- 


67 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

ling  through  the  air  —  it  has  certainly 
been  a  long  time  in  its  descent." 

The  young  William  Pepperell  was  grad- 
uated from  Cambridge  in  1766,  and  the 
next  year  married  the  beautiful  Elizabeth 
Roy  all.  In  1774  he  was  chosen  a  member 
of  the  governor's  council.  But  when  this 
council  was  reorganised  under  the  act  of 
Parliament,  he  fell  into  disgrace  because 
of  his  loyalty  to  the  king.  On  November 
16,  1774,  the  people  of  his  own  county 
(York),  passed  at  Wells  a  resolution  in 
which  he  was  declared  to  have  "  forfeited 
the  confidence  and  friendship  of  all  true 
friends  of  American  liberty,  and  ought  to 
be  detested  by  all  good  men.77 

Thus  denounced,  the  baronet  retired  to 
Boston,  and  sailed,  shortly  before  his 
father-in-law's  departure,  for  England.  His 
beautiful  lady,  one  is  saddened  to  learn, 
died  of  smallpox  ere  the  vessel  had  been 
68 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

many  days  out,  and  was  buried  at  Halifax. 
In  England,  Sir  William  was  allowed  £500 
per  annum  by  the  British  government,  and 
was  treated  with  much  deference.  He  was 
the  good  friend  of  all  refugees  from  Amer- 
ica, and  entertained  hospitably  at  his 
pleasant  home.  His  private  life  was  irre- 
proachable, and  he  died  in  Portman 
Square,  London,  in  December,  1816,  at  the 
age  of  seventy.  His  vast  possessions  and 
landed  estate  in  Maine  were  confiscated, 
except  for  the  widow's  dower  enjoyed  by 
Lady  Mary,  relict  of  the  hero  of  Louis- 
burg,  and  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Sparhawk. 
Colonel  Roy  all,  though  he  acted  not  un- 
like his  son-in-law,  Sir  William,  has,  be- 
cause  of  his  vacillation,  far  less  of  our 
respect  than  the  younger  man  in  the  mat- 
ter of  his  refusal  to  cast  in  his  lot  with 
that  of  the  Revolution.  In  1778  he  was 
publicly  proscribed  and  formally  banished 

69 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

from  Massachusetts.  He  thereupon  took 
up  his  abode  in  Kensington,  Middlesex, 
and  from  this  place,  in  1789,  he  begged 
earnestly  to  be  allowed  to  return  "  home  " 
to  Medford,  declaring  he  was  "  ever  a  good 
friend  of  the  Province,"  and  expressing  the 
wish  to  marry  again  in  his  own  country, 
"  where,  having  already  had  one  good  wife, 
he  was  in  hopes  to  get  another,  and  in  some 
degree  repair  his  loss."  His  prayer  was, 
however,  refused,  and  he  died  of  smallpox 
in  England,  October,  1781.  By  his  will, 
Harvard  College  was  given  a  tract  of  land 
in  Worcester  County,  for  the  foundation  of 
a  professorship,  which  still  bears  his  name. 
It  is  not,  however,  to  be  supposed  that  in 
war  time  so  fine  a  place  as  the  Roy  all 
mansion  should  have  been  left  unoccupied. 
When  the  yeomen  began  pouring  into  the 
environs  of  Boston,  encircling  it  with  a 
belt  of  steel,  the  New  Hampshire  levies 
70 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

pitched  their  tents  in  Medford.  They 
found  the  Royall  mansion  in  the  occupancy 
of  Madam  Royall  and  her  accomplished 
daughters,  who  willingly  received  Colonel 
John  Stark  into  the  house  as  a  safeguard 
against  insult,  or  any  invasion  of  the  estate 
the  soldiers  might  attempt.  A  few  rooms 
were  accordingly  set  apart  for  the  use  of 
the  bluff  old  ranger,  and  he,  on  his  part, 
treated  the  family  of  the  deserter  with  con- 
siderable respect  and  courtesy.  It  is  odd 
to  think  that  while  the  stately  Royalls 
were  living  in  one  part  of  this  house, 
General  Stark  and  his  plucky  wife,  Molly, 
occupied  quarters  under  the  same  roof. 

The  second  American  general  to  be  at- 
tracted by  the  luxury  of  the  Royall  man- 
sion was  that  General  Lee  whose  history 
furnishes  material  for  a  separate  chapter. 
General  Lee  it  was  to  whom  the  house's 
echoing  corridors  suggested  the  name,  Hob- 

71 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

goblin  Hall.  So  far  as  known,  however, 
no  inhabitant  of  the  Royall  house  has  ever 
been  disturbed  by  strange  visions  or  fright- 
ful dreams.  After  Lee,  by  order  of  Wash- 
ington, removed  to  a  house  situated  nearer 
his  command,  General  Sullivan,  attracted, 
no  doubt,  by  the  superior  comfort  of  the 
old  country-seat,  laid  himself  open  to  sim- 
ilar correction  by  his  chief.  In  these  two 
cases  it  will  be  seen  Washington  enforced 
his  own  maxim  that  a  general  should  sleep 
among  his  troops. 

In  1810,  the  Roy  all  mansion  came  into 
the  possession  of  Jacob  Tidd,  in  whose 
family  it  remained  half  a  century,  until 
it  had  almost  lost  its  identity  with  the 
timid  old  colonel  and  his  kin.  As  "  Mrs. 
Tidd's  house  "  it  was  long  known  in  Med- 
ford.  The  place  was  subsequently  owned 
by  George  L.  Barr,  and  by  George  C. 
Nichols,  from  whose  hands  it  passed  to  that 
72 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTEEES 

of  Mr.  Geer,  the  present  owner.  To  be 
sure,  it  has  sadly  fallen  from  its  high 
estate,  but  it  still  remains  one  of  the  most 
interesting  and  romantic  houses  in  all  New 
England,  and  when,  as  happens  once  or 
twice  a  year,  the  charming  ladies  of  the 
local  patriotic  society  powder  their  hair, 
don  their  great-grandmother's  wedding 
gowns  and  entertain  in  the  fine  old  rooms, 
it  requires  only  a  slight  gift  of  fancy  to 
see  Sir  William  Pepperell's  lovely  bride 
one  among  the  gay  throng  of  fair  women. 


73 


MOLLY    STAKK'S    GENTLEMAN- 
SON 

the  quaint  ancestral  homes  still 
standing  in  the  old  Granite  State, 
none  is  more  picturesque  or  more 
interesting  from  the  historical  view-point 
than  the  Stark  house  in  the  little  town  of 
Dunbarton,  a  place  about  five  miles'  drive 
out  from  Concord,  over  one  of  those  charm- 
ing country  roads,  which  properly  make 
New  Hampshire  the  summer  and  autumn 
Mecca  of  those  who  have  been  "  long  in 
populous  city  pent."  Rather  oddly,  this 
house  has,  for  all  its  great  wealth  of  his- 
torical interest,  been  little  known  to  the 
general  public.  The  Starks  are  a  conserv- 
74 


OLD  KEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

ative,  as  well  as  an  old  family,  and  they 
have  never  seen  fit  to  make  of  their 
home  a  public  show-house.  Yet  those  who 
are  privileged  to  visit  Dunbarton  and  its 
chief  boast,  this  famous  house,  always  re- 
member the  experience  as  a  particu- 
larly interesting  one.  Seldom,  indeed,  can 
one  find  in  these  days  a  house  like  this, 
which,  for  more  than  one  hundred  years, 
has  been  occupied  by  the  family  for  whom 
it  was  built,  and  through  all  the  changes 
and  chances  of  temporal  affairs  has  pre- 
served the  characteristics  of  revolutionary 
times. 

Originally  Dunbarton  was  Starkstown. 
An  ancestor  of  this  family,  Archibald 
Stark,  was  one  of  the  original  proprietors, 
owning  many  hundred  acres,  not  a  few  of 
which  are  still  in  the  Starks'  possession. 
Just  when  and  by  whom  the  place  received 
the  name  of  the  old  Scottish  town  and  royal 

T5 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

castle  on  the  Clyde,  no  historian  seems 
able  to  state  with  definiteness,  but  that  the 
present  Dunbarton  represents  only  a  small 
part  of  the  original  triangular  township, 
all  are  agreed.  Of  the  big  landowner, 
Archibald  Stark,  the  General  John  Stark 
of  our  Revolution  was  a  son. 

Another  of  the  original  proprietors  of 
Dunbarton  was  a  certain  Captain  Caleb 
Page,  whose  name  still  clings  to  a  rural 
neighbourhood  of  the  township,  a  cross- 
roads section  pointed  out  to  visitors  as 
Page's  Corner.  And  it  was  to  Elizabeth 
Page,  the  bright  and  capable  daughter  of 
his  father's  old  friend  and  neighbour,  that 
the  doughty  John  Stark  was  married  in 
August,  1758,  while  at  home  on  a  furlough. 
The  son  of  this  marriage  was  called  Caleb, 
after  his  maternal  grandfather,  and  he  it 
was  who  built  the  imposing  old  mansion 
of  our  story. 
76 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

Caleb  Stark  was  a  very  remarkable  man. 
Born  at  Dumbarton,  December  3,  17-59,  he 
was  present  while  only  a  lad  at  the  battle 
of  Bunker  Hill,  standing  side  by  side  with 
some  of  the  veteran  rangers  of  the  French 
war,  near  the  rail  fence,  which  extended 
from  the  redoubt  to  the  beach  of  the  Mystic 
River.  In  order  to  be  at  this  scene  of  con- 
flict, the  boy  had  left  home  secretly  some 
days  before,  mounted  on  his  own  horse, 
and  armed  only  with  a  musket.  After  a 
long,  hard  journey,  he  managed  to  reach 
the  Roy  all  house  in  Medford,  which  was 
his  father's  headquarters  at  the  time,  the 
very  night  before  the  great  battle.  And 
the  general,  though  annoyed  at  his  son's 
manner  of  coming,  recognised  that  the  lad 
had  done  only  what  a  Stark  must  do  at 
such  a  time,  and  permitted  him  to  take 
part  in  the  next  day's  fight. 

After  that,  there  followed  for  Caleb  a 

77 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

time  of  great  social  opportunity,  which 
transformed  the  clever,  but  unpolished 
New  Hampshire  boy  into  as  fine  a  young 
gentleman  as  was  to  be  found  in  the 
whole  country.  The  Royall  house,  it 
will  be  remembered,  was  presided  over  in 
the  troublous  war  times  by  the  beautiful 
ladies  of  the  family,  than  whom  no  more 
cultured  and  distinguished  women  were 
anywhere  to  be  met.  And  these,  though 
Tory  to  the  backbone,  were  disposed  to 
be  very  kind  and  gracious  to  the  brave 
boy  whom  the  accident  of  war  had  made 
their  guest. 

So  it  came  about  that  even  before  he 
reached  manhood's  estate,  Caleb  Stark  had 
acquired  the  grace  and  polish  of  Europe. 
Nor  was  the  lad  merely  a  carpet  knight. 
So  ably  did  he  serve  his  father  that  he  was 
made  the  elder  soldier's  aid-de-camp,  when 
the  father  was  made  a  brigadier-general, 
78 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

and  by  the  time  the  war  closed,  was  himself 
Major  Stark,  though  scarcely  twenty-four 
years  old. 

Soon  after  peace  was  declared,  the  young 
major  came  into  his  Dunbarton  patrimony, 
and  in  IT 84,  in  a  very  pleasant  spot  in  the 
midst  of  his  estate,  and  facing  the  broad 
highway  leading  from  Dunbarton  to 
Weare,  he  began  to  build  his  now  famous 
house.  It  was  finished  the  next  year,  and 
in  1787,  the  young  man,  having  been 
elected  town  treasurer  of  Dunbarton,  re- 
solved to  settle  down  in  his  new  home, 
and  brought  there  as  his  wife,  Miss  Sarah 
McKinstrey,  a  daughter  of  Doctor  William 
McKinstrey,  formerly  of  Taunton,  Mas- 
sachusetts, a  beautiful  and  cultivated  girl, 
just  twenty  years  old. 

It  is  interesting  in  this  connection  to 
note  that  all  the  women  of  the  Stark  family 
have  been  beauties,  and  that  they  have, 

79 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

too,  been  sweet  and  charming  in  disposi- 
tion, as  well  as  in  face.  The  old  mansion 
on  the  Weare  road  has  been  the  home  dur- 
ing its  one  hundred  and  ten  years  of  life 
of  several  women  who  would  have  adorned, 
both  by  reason  of  their  personal  and  intel- 
lectual charms,  any  position  in  our  land. 
This  being  true,  it  is  not  odd  that  the  coun- 
try folk  speak  of  the  Stark  family  with 
deepest  reverence. 

Beside  building  the  family  homestead, 
Caleb  Stark  did  two  other  things  which 
serve  to  make  him  distinguished  even  in 
a  family  where  all  were  great.  He  enter- 
tained Lafayette,  and  he  accumulated  the 
family  fortune.  Both  these  things  were 
accomplished  at  Pembroke,  where  the 
major  early  established  some  successful 
cotton  mills.  The  date  of  his  entertain- 
ment of  Lafayette  was,  of  course,  1825, 
the  year  when  the  marquis,  after  laying  the 
80 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTEEES 

corner-stone  of  our  monument  on  Bunker 
Hill,  made  his  triumphal  tour  through 
New  Hampshire. 

The  bed  upon  which  the  great  French- 
man slept  during  his  visit  to  the  Starks 
is  still  carefully  preserved,  and  those 
guests  who  have  had  the  privilege  of  being 
entertained  by  the  present  owners  of  the 
house  can  bear  testimony  to  the  fact  that 
the  couch  is  an  extremely  comfortable  one. 
The  room  in  which  this  bed  is  the  most 
prominent  article  of  furniture  bears  the 
name  of  the  Lafayette  room,  and  is  in 
every  particular  furnished  after  the  man- 
ner of  a  sleeping  apartment  of  one  hundred 
years  ago.  The  curtains  of  the  high  bed- 
stead, the  quaint  toilet-table,  the  bedside 
table  with  its  brass  candlestick,  and  the 
pictures  and  the  ornaments  are  all  in  har- 
mony. Nowhere  has  a  discordant  modern 
note  been  struck.  The  same  thing  is  true 

81 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

of  all  the  other  apartments  in  the  house. 
The  Starks  have  one  and  all  displayed 
great  taste  and  decided  skill  in  preserving 
the  long-ago  tone  that  makes  the  place  what 
it  is.  The  second  Caleb,  who  inherited  the 
estate  in  1838,  when  his  father,  the  bril- 
liant major,  died,  was  a  Harvard  graduate, 
and  writer  of  repute,  being  the  author  of 
a  valuable  memoir  of  his  father  and  grand- 
father. He  collected,  even  more  than  they 
had  done,  family  relics  of  interest.  When 
he  died  in  1865,  his  two  sisters,  Harriett 
and  Charlotte,  succeeded  him  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  estate. 

Only  comparatively  recently  has  this 
latter  sister  died,  and  the  place  come  into 
the  hands  of  its  present  owner.  Mr.  Charles 
F.  Morris  Stark,  an  heir  who  has  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  Morris  family  to  add  to 
those  of  the  Starks,  being  on  his  mother's 
side  a  lineal  descendant  of  Robert  Morris, 
82 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

the  great  financier  of  the  Revolution.  The 
present  Mrs.  Stark  is  the  representative  of 
still  another  noted  New  Hampshire  family, 
being  the  granddaughter  of  General  John 
McNeil,  a  famous  soldier  of  the  Granite 
State. 

Few,  indeed,  are  the  homes  in  America 
which  contain  so  much  which,  while  of 
intimate  interest  to  the  family,,  is  as  well 
of  wide  historical  importance.  Though  a 
home,  the  house  has  the  value  of  a  museum. 
The  portrait  of  Major  Stark,  which  hangs 
in  the  parlour  at  the  right  of  the  square  en- 
trance-hall, was  painted  by  Professor  Sam- 
uel Finley  Breese  Morse,  the  discoverer  of 
the  electric  telegraph,  a  man  who  wished  to 
come  down  to  posterity  as  an  artist,  but  is 
now  remembered  by  us  only  as  an  inventor. 

This  picture  is  an  admirable  presents- 
tion  of  its  original.  The  gallant  major 
looks  down  upon  us  with  a  person  rather 

83 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

above  the  medium  in  height,  of  a  slight 
but  muscular  frame,  with  the  short  waist- 
coat, the  high  collar,  and  the  close,  narrow 
shoulders  of  the  gentleman's  costume  of 
1830.  The  carriage  of  the  head  is  noble, 
and  the  strong  features,  the  deep-set,  keen, 
blue  eyes,  and  the  prominent  forehead, 
speak  of  courage,  intelligence,  and  cool 
self-possession. 

Beside  this  noteworthy  portrait  hangs 
a  beautiful  picture  of  the  first  mistress  of 
this  house,  the  Mrs.  Stark  who,  as  a  girl, 
was  Miss  Sarah  McKinstrey.  Her  portrait 
shows  her  to  have  been  a  fine  example  of  the 
blonde  type  of  beauty.  The  splendid  coils 
of  her  hair  are  very  lustrous,  and  the  dark 
hazel  eyes  look  out  from  the  frame  with  the 
charm  and  dignity  of  a  St.  Cecilia.  Her 
costume,  too,  is  singularly  appropriate  and 
becoming,  azure  silk  with  great  puffs  of 


84 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

lace  around  the  white  arms  and  queenly 
throat.  The  waist,  girdled  under  the  arm- 
pits, and  the  long-wristed  mits  stamp  the 
date  1815-21. 

The  portrait  of  General  Stark,  which 
was  painted  by  Miss  Hannah  Crownin- 
shield,  is  said  not  to  look  so  much  like  the 
doughty  soldier  as  does  the  Morse  picture 
of  his  son,  but  Gilbert  Stuart's  Miss  Char- 
lotte Stark,  recently  deceased,  shows  the 
last  daughter  of  the  family  to  have  fairly 
sustained  in  her  youth  the  reputation  for 
beauty  which  goes  with  the  Stark  women. 

Beside  the  portraits,  there  are  in  the 
house  many  other  choice  and  valuable 
antiques.  Among  these  the  woman  visitor 
notices  with  particular  interest  the  fan 
that  was  once  the  property  of  Lady  Pep- 
perell,  who  was  a  daughter,  it  will  be  re- 
membered, of  the  Royall  family,  who  were 


85 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

so  kind  to  Major  Caleb  Stark  in  his  youth. 
And  to  the  man  who  loves  historical  things, 
the  cane  presented  to  General  Stark  when 
he  was  a  major,  for  valiant  conduct  in  de- 
fence of  Fort  William  Henry,  will  be  of 
especial  interest.  This  cane  is  made  from 
the  bone  of  a  whale  and  is  headed  with 
ivory.  On  the  mantelpiece  stands  another 
very  interesting  souvenir,  a  bronze  statu- 
ette of  Napoleon  I.,  which  Lafayette 
brought  with  him  from  France  and  pre- 
sented to  Major  Stark. 

Apropos  of  this  there  is  an  amusing 
story.  The  major  was  a  great  admirer  of 
the  distinguished  Bonaparte,  and  made  a 
collection  of  Napoleonic  busts  and  pictures, 
all  of  which,  together  with  the  numerous 
other  effects  of  the  Stark  place,  had  to  be 
appraised  at  his  death.  As  it  happened, 
the  appraiser  was  a  countryman  of  limited 


86 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

intelligence,  and,  when  he  was  told  to  put 
down  "  twelve  Bonapartes,"  recorded 
"  twelve  pony  carts,"  and  it  was  thus  that 
the  item  appeared  on  the  legal  paper. 

The  house  itself  is  a  not  unworthy  imi- 
tation of  an  English  manor-house,  with  its 
aspect  of  old-time  grandeur  and  pictur- 
esque repose.  It  is  of  wood,  two  and  a  half 
stories  high,  with  twelve  dormer  windows, 
a  gambrel  roof,  and  a  large  two-story  L. 
In  front  there  are  two  rows  of  tall  and 
stately  elms,  and  the  trim  little  garden  is 
enclosed  by  a  painted  iron  fence.  On 
either  side  of  the  spacious  hall,  which  ex- 
tends through  the  middle  of  the  house, 
are  to  be  found  handsome  trophies  of  the 
chase,  collected  by  the  present  master  of 
the  place,  who  is  a  keen  sportsman. 

A  gorgeous  carpet,  which  dates  back 
fifty  years,  having  been  laid  in  the  days 
of  the  beautiful  Sarah,  supplies  the  one 

87 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

bit  of  colour  in  the  parlour,  while  in  the 
dining-room  the  rich  silver  and  handsome 
mahogany  testify  to  the  old-time  glories 
of  the  place.  Of  manuscripts  which  are 
simply  priceless,  the  house  contains  not  a 
few;  one,  over  the  quaint  wine-cooler  in 
the  dining-room,  acknowledging,  in  George 
Washington's  own  hand,  courtesies  ex- 
tended to  him  and  to  his  lady  by  a  member 
of  the  Morris  family,  being  especially  in- 
teresting. Up-stairs,  in  the  sunlit  hall, 
among  other  treasures,  more  elegant  but 
not  more  interesting,  hangs  a  sunbonnet 
once  worn  by  Molly  Stark  herself. 

Not  far  off  down  the  country  road  is 
perhaps  the  most  beautiful  and  attractive 
spot  in  the  whole  town,  the  old  family 
burying-ground  of  the  Starks,  in  which  are 
interred  all  the  deceased  members  of  this 
remarkable  family,  from  the  Revolutionary 
Major  Caleb  and  his  wife  down.  Here, 
88 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTEEES 

with  grim,  towering  Kearsarge  standing 
ever  like  a  sentinel,  rests  under  the  yew- 
trees  the  dust  of  this  great  family's  hon- 
oured dead. 


A  SOLDIER  OF  FORTUNE 

"^P^HE  only  time  I  ever  heard  Wash- 
i  ington  swear,"  Lafayette  once  re- 
marked, "  was  when  he  called 
General  Charles  Lee  a  '  damned  poltroon/ 
after  the  arrest  of  that  officer  for  treason- 
able conduct."  Nor  was  Washington  the 
only  person  of  self-restraint  and  good  man- 
ners whose  temper  and  angry  passions 
were  roused  by  this  same  erratic  General 
Lee. 

Lee  was  an  Englishman,  born  in 
Cheshire  in  1731.  He  entered  the  British 
army  at  the  age  of  eleven  years,  was  in 
Braddock's  expedition,  and  was  wounded  at 
Ticonderoga  in  1758.  He  also  served  for 
90 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

a  time  in  Portugal,  but  certain  infelicities 
of  temper  hindered  his  advancement,  and 
he  never  rose  higher  in  the  British  service 
than  a  half-pay  major.  As  a  "  soldier  of 
fortune  "  he  was  vastly  more  successful. 
In  all  the  pages  of  American  history,  in- 
deed, it  would  be  difficult  to  find  anybody 
whose  career  was  more  interestingly  and 
picturesquely  checkered  than  was  his. 

Lee's  purpose  in  coming  to  America  has 
never  been  fully  explained.  There  are 
concerning  this,  as  every  other  step  of  his 
career,  two  diametrically  opposed  opinions. 
The  American  historians  have  for  the  most 
agreed  in  thinking  him  traitorous  and  self- 
seeking,  but  for  my  own  part  I  find  little 
to  justify  this  belief,  for  I  have  no  diffi- 
culty whatever  in  accounting  for  his 
soldierly  vagaries  on  the  score  of  his 
temperament,  and  the  peculiar  conditions 
of  his  early  life.  A  man  who,  while  still 

91 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTEEES 

a  youth,  was  adopted  by  the  Mohawk  In- 
dians, —  who  bestowed  upon  him  the  sig- 
nificant name  of  Boiling  Water,  —  who 
was  at  one  time  aid-de-camp  and  intimate 
friend  of  the  King  of  Poland,  who  ren- 
dered good  service  in  the  Russian  war 
against  the  Turks,  —  all  before  interesting 
himself  at  all  in  the  cause  of  American 
freedom,  —  could  scarcely  be  expected  to 
be  as  simple  in  his  us-ward  emotions  as  an 
Israel  Putnam  or  a  General  John  Stark 
might  be. 

General  Lee  arrived  in  New  York  from 
London,  on  November  10,  1773,  his 
avowed  object  in  seeking  the  colonies  at 
such  a  troublous  time  being  to  investigate 
the  justice  of  the  American  cause.  He 
travelled  all  over  the  country  in  pursuance 
of  facts  concerning  the  fermenting  feeling 
against  England,  but  he  was  soon  able  to 
enroll  himself  unequivocally  upon  the  side 
92 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOETKEES 

of  the  colonies.  In  a  letter  written  to  Lord 
Percy,  then  stationed  at  Boston,  this  eccen- 
tric new  friend  of  the  American  cause  — 
himself,  it  must  be  remembered,  still  a 
half -pay  officer  in  the  English  army  — 
expressed  with  great  freedom  his  opinion 
of  England's  position :  "  Were  the  prin- 
ciple of  taxing  America  without  her  con- 
sent admitted,  Great  Britain  would  that 
instant  be  ruined."  And  to  General  Gage, 
his  warm  personal  friend,  Lee  wrote :  "  I 
am  convinced  that  the  court  of  Tiberius 
was  not  more  treacherous  to  the  rights  of 
mankind  than  is  the  present  court  of  Great 
Britain." 

It  is  rather  odd  to  find  that  General 
Charles  Lee,  of  whom  we  know  so  little,  and 
that  little  scarcely  to  his  credit,  occupied  in 
the  military  court  of  the  American  army  a 
position  second  only  to  Washington ;  he  was 
appointed  a  major-general  on  June  17; 

93 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

1775,  a  date  marked  for  us  by  the  fact  that 
Bunker  Hill's  battle  was  then  fought.  Not 
long  after  his  arrival  at  the  camp,  General 
Lee,  with  that  tendency  to  independent  ac- 
tion which  was  afterward  to  work  to  his 
undoing,  took  up  his  quarters  in  the  Royall 
house.  And  Lee  it  was  who  gave  to  the 
fine  old  place  the  name  Hobgoblin  Hall. 
Erom  this  mansion,  emphatically  remote 
from  Lee's  command,  the  eccentric  general 
was  summarily  recalled  by  his  commander- 
in-chief,  then,  as  ever  after,  quick  to  ad- 
minister to  this  major-general  what  he  con- 
ceived to  be  needed  reproof. 

The  house  in  which  General  Lee  next 
resided  is  still  standing  on  Sycamore 
Street,  Somerville.  When  the  place  was 
occupied  by  Lee  it  had  one  of  those 
long  pitched  roofs,  descending  to  a  single 
story  at  the  back,  which  are  still  occa- 
sionally met  with  in  our  interior  New 
94 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

England  towns.  The  house  was,  however, 
altered  to  its  present  appearance  by  that 
John  Tufts  who  occupied  it  during  post- 
Revolutionary  times.  From  this  lofty 
dwelling,  Lee  was  able  to  overlook  Boston, 
and  to  observe,  by  the  aid  of  a  strong  field- 
glass,  all  the  activities  of  the  enemy's  camp. 

Lee  himself  was  at  this  time  an  object 
of  unfriendly  espionage.  In  a  "  separate 
and  secret  despatch/'  Lord  Dartmouth  in- 
structed General  Gage  to  have  a  special 
eye  on  the  ex-English  officer.  That  Lee 
had  resigned  his  claim  to  emolument  in 
the  English  army  does  not  seem  to  have 
made  his  countrymen  as  clear  as  it  should 
have  done  concerning  his  relation  to  their 
cause. 

Meanwhile,  General  Lee,  though  sleep- 
ing in  his  wind-swept  farmhouse  and 
watching  from  its  windows  the  movements 
of  the  British,  indulged  when  opportunity 

95 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

offered  in  the  social  pleasures  of  the  other 
American  officers.  Rough  and  unattrac- 
tive in  appearance, — he  seems  to  have  been 
a  kind  of  Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  "  a  tall 
man,  lank  and  thin,  with  a  huge  nose,"  — 
he  had,  when  he  chose,  a  certain  amount 
of  social  grace,  and  was  often  extremely 
entertaining. 

Mrs.  John  Adams,  who  first  met  General 
Lee  at  an  evening  party  at  Major  Mifflin's 
house  in  Cambridge,  describes  him  as  look- 
ing like  a  "  careless,  hardy  veteran,"  who 
brought  to  her  mind  his  namesake,  Charles 
XII.  "  The  elegance  of  his  pen  far  ex- 
ceeds that  of  his  person,"  commented  this 
acute  lady.  In  further  describing  this 
evening  spent  at  Major  Mifflin's  home,  in 
the  Brattle  mansion,  Mrs.  Adams  writes: 
"  General  Lee  was  very  urgent  for  me  to 
tarry  in  town,  and  dine  with  him  and  the 
ladies  present,  but  I  excused  myself.  The 
96 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

general  was  determined  that  I  should  not 
only  be  acquainted  with  him,  but  with  his 
companions,  too,  and  therefore  placed  a 
chair  before  me,  into  which  he  ordered 
Mr.  Spada  (his  dog)  to  mount,  and  present 
his  paw  to  me  for  better  acquaintance."  1 
Lee  was  very  fond  indeed  of  dogs,  and 
was  constantly  attended  by  one  or  more  of 
them,  this  Spada  being  a  great,  shaggy 
Pomeranian,  described  by  unbiassed  critics 
as  looking  more  like  a  bear  than  a  harmless 
canine.  In  this  connection,  it  is  interest- 
ing to  know  that  Lee  has  expressed  himself 
very  strongly  in  regard  to  the  affection  of 
men  as  compared  with  the  affection  of 
dogs. 

This  love  for  dogs  was,  however,  one  of 
the  more  ornamental  of  General  Lee's 
traits.  His  carelessness  in  regard  to  his 

*  Drake's  "  Historic  Fields  and  Mansions  of  Mid- 
dlesex." Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  publishers. 

97 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

personal  appearance  was  famous,  and  not 
a  few  amusing  stories  are  told  of  the  awk- 
ward situations  in  which  this  officer's 
slovenliness  involved  him.  On  one  of 
Washington's  journeys,  in  which  Lee  ac- 
companied him,  the  major-general,  upon 
arriving  at  the  house  where  they  were  to 
dine,  went  straight  to  the  kitchen  and  de- 
manded something  to  eat.  The  cook,  taking 
him  for  a  servant,  told  him  that  she 
would  give  him  some  victuals  directly,  but 
that  he  must  first  help  her  off  with  the  pot 
—  a  request  with  which  he  readily  com- 
plied. He  was  then  told  to  take  a  bucket 
and  go  to  the  well  for  water,  and  was  actu- 
ally engaged  in  drawing  it  when  found 
by  an  aid  whom  Washington  had  des- 
patched in  quest  of  him.  The  cook  was  in 
despair  when  she  heard  her  assistant  ad- 
dressed by  the  title  of  "  General."  The 
mug  fell  from  her  hands,  and  dropping 
98 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

on  her  knees,  she  began  crying  for  pardon, 
when  Lee,  who  was  ever  ready  to  see  the 
impropriety  of  his  own  conduct,  but  never 
willing  to  change  it,  gave  her  a  crown,  and, 
turning  to  the  aid-de-camp,  observed: 
"  You  see,  young  man,  the  advantage  of  a 
fine  coat;  the  man  of  consequence  is  in- 
debted to  it  for  respect;  neither  virtue 
nor  ability,  without  it,  will  make  you  look 
like  a  gentleman."  l 

Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  episode  in 
all  Lee's  social  career,  was  that  connected 
with  Sir  William  Howe's  famous  entertain- 
ment at  Philadelphia,  the  Mischianza. 
This  was  just  after  the  affair  at  Monmouth, 
in  the  course  of  which  Washington  swore, 
and  Lee  was  taken  prisoner.  Yet  though 
a  prisoner,  the  eccentric  general  was 
treated  with  the  greatest  courtesy,  and 

1  Drake's  "  Historic  Fields  and  Mansions  of  Mid- 
dlesex." 

99 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

seems  even  to  have  received  a  card  for  the 
famous  ball.  But,  never  too  careful  of 
his  personal  appearance,  he  must  on  this 
occasion  have  looked  particularly  uncouth. 
Certainly  the  beautiful  Miss  Franks,  one 
of  the  Philadelphia  belles,  thought  him 
far  from  ornamental,  and,  with  the  keen 
wit  for  which  she  was  celebrated,  spread 
abroad  a  report  that  General  Lee  came  to 
the  ball  clad  in  green  breeches,  patched 
with  leather.  To  prove  to  her  that  entire 
accuracy  had  not  been  used  in  describing 
his  garb  at  the  ball,  the  general  sent  the 
young  lady  the  very  articles  of  clothing 
which  she  had  criticised !  Naturally, 
neither  the  ladies  nor  their  escorts  thought 
any  better  of  Lee's  manners  after  this  bit 
of  horse-play,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  he  was 
not  soon  again  invited  to  an  evening  party. 
Mrs.  Hamilton  and  Mrs.  Mercy  Warren 
both  call  Lee  "  a  crabbed  man."  The  latter 
100 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND 


described  him  in  a  letter  to  Samuel 
as  "  plain  in  his  person  to  a  degree  of 
ugliness  ;  careless  even  to  impoliteness  ; 
his  garb  ordinary;  his  voice  rough;  his 
manners  rather  morose;  yet  sensible, 
learned,  judicious,  and  penetrating." 

Toward  the  end  of  his  life,  Lee  took 
refuge  in  an  estate  which  he  had  pur- 
chased in  Berkeley  County,  Virginia. 
Here  he  lived,  more  like  a  hermit  than 
a  citizen  of  the  world,  or  a  member  of  a 
civilised  community.  His  house  was  little 
more  than  a  shell,  without  partitions,  and 
it  lacked  even  such  articles  of  furniture 
as  were  necessary  for  the  most  common 
uses.  To  a  gentleman  who  visited  him 
in  this  forlorn  retreat,  where  he  found  a 
kitchen  in  one  corner,  a  bed  in  another, 
books  in  a  third,  saddles  and  harness  in 
a  fourth,  Lee  said  :  "  Sir,  it  is  the  most 
convenient  and  economical  establishment 


OLE?  STEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

^n;  the^  wQrld.  The  lines  of  chalk  which 
you  see  on  the  floor  mark  the  divisions  of 
the  apartments,  and  I  can  sit  in  a  corner 
and  give  orders  and  overlook  the  whole 
without  moving  from  my  chair." 

General  Lee  died  in  an  obscure  inn  in 
Philadelphia,  October  2,  1782.  His  will 
was  characteristic:  "I  desire  most  ear- 
nestly that  I  may  not  be  buried  in  any 
church  or  churchyard,  or  Avithin  a  mile 
of  any  Presbyterian  or  Baptist  meeting- 
house; for  since  I  have  resided  in  this 
country  I  have  kept  so  much  bad  company 
that  I  do  not  choose  to  continue  it  when 
dead."  In  this  will,  our  singular  hero 
paid  a  tribute  of  affectionate  remembrance 
to  several  of  his  intimate  friends,  and  of 
grateful  generosity  to  the  humble  depend- 
ents who  had  adhered  to  him  and  minis- 

1  Sparks's  "  Life  of  Charles  Lee."  Little,  Brown 
&Co. 

102 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

tered  to  his  wants  in  his  retirement.  The 
bulk  of  his  property  —  for  he  was  a  man 
of  no  small  means  —  was  bequeathed  to 
his  only  sister,  Sydney  Lee.  to  whom  he 
was  ever  devotedly  attached. 


1-53 


THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  LANTERNS 

rHERE  are  many  points  of  view 
from    which    this    tale    of    Paul 
Revere  may  be  told,  but  to  the 
generality  of  people  the   interest   of  the 
poem,   and  of  the  historical  event  itself, 
will  always  centre  around  Christ  Church, 
on  Salem  Street,  in  the  North  End  of  Bos- 
ton —  the  church  where  the  lanterns  were 
hung  out  on  the  night  before  the  battles  of 
Lexington  and  Concord.     At  nearly  every 
hour  of  the  day  some  one  may  be  seen  in  the 
now  unfrequented  street  looking  up  at  the 
edifice's  lofty  spire  with  an  expression  full 
of  reverence  and  satisfaction.    There  upon 
104 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

the  venerable  structure,  imbedded  in  the 
solid  masonry  of  the  tower  front,  one  reads 
upon  a  tablet : 

THE    SIGNAL    LANTERNS    OF 

PAUL    REVERE 

DISPLAYED    IN    THE    STEEPLE 

OF    THIS    CHURCH, 

APRIL    18,    1775, 

WARNED    THE    COUNTRY    OF 

THE    MARCH    OF    TPIE 

BRITISH    TROOPS    TO    LEXINGTON 

AND    CONCORD. 

If  the  pilgrim  wishes  to  get  into  the 
very  spirit  of  old  Christ  Church  and  its 
historical  associations,  he  can  even  climb 
the  tower  — 

"  By  the  wooden  stairs,  with  stealthy  tread, 
To  the  belfry  chamber  overhead, 
And  startle  the  pigeons  from  their  perch 
On  the  sombre  rafters,  that  round  him  make 
Masses  and  moving  shapes  of  shade  "  — 

105 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

to  look  down  as   Captain   John  Pulling 
did  that  eventful  night  on  — 

"  The  graves  on  the  hill, 
Lonely  and  spectral  and  sombre  and  still." 

The  first  time  I  ever  climbed  the  tower 
I  confess  that  I  was  seized  with  an  over- 
powering sense  of  the  weirdness  and  mys- 
tery of  those  same  spectral  graves,  seen 
thus  from  above.  It  was  dark  and  gloomy 
going  up  the  stairs,  and  if  John  Pulling 
had  thought  of  the  prospect,  rather  than  of 
his  errand,  I  venture  to  say  he  must  have 
been  frightened  for  all  his  bravery,  in  that 
gloomy  tower  at  midnight. 

But,  of  course,  his  mind  was  intent  on 
the  work  he  had  to  do,  and  on  the  signals 
which  would  tell  how  the  British  were 
to  proceed  on  their  march  to  seize  the  rebel 
stores  at  Concord.  The  signals  agreed 
upon  were  two  lanterns  if  the  troops  went 
by  way  of  water,  one  if  they  were  to  go 
106 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

by  land.     In  Longfellow's  story  we  learn 
that  Pulling  — 

"  Through  alley  and  street, 
Wanders  and  watches  with  eager  ears, 
Till  in  the  silence  around  him  he  hears 
The  muster  of  men  at  the  barrack  door, 
The  sound  of  arms  and  the  tramp  of  feet, 
And  the  measured  tread  of  the  grenadiers, 
Marching  down  to  their  boats  on  the  shore." 

It  had  been  decided  that  the  journey 
should  be  made  by  sea ! 

The  Province  of  Massachusetts,  it  must 
be  understood,  was  at  this  time  on  the 
eve  of  open  revolt.  It  had  formed  an 
army,  commissioned  its  officers,  and 
promulgated  orders  as  if  there  were  no 
such  person  as  George  III.  It  was  collect- 
ing stores  in  anticipation  of  the  moment 
when  its  army  should  take  the  field.  It 
had,  moreover,  given  General  Gage  — 
whom  the  king  had  sent  to  Boston  to  put 
down  the  rebellion  there  —  to  understand 

107 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

that  the  first  movement  made  by  the  royal 
troops  into  the  country  would  be  considered 
as  an  act  of  hostility,  and  treated  as  such. 
Gage  had  up  to  this  time  hesitated  to  act. 
At  length  his  resolution  to  strike  a  crip- 
pling blow,  and,  if  possible,  to  do  it  with- 
out bloodshed,  was  taken.  Spies  had  in- 
formed him  that  the  patriots'  depot  of 
ammunition  was  at  Concord,  and  he  had 
determined  to  send  a  secret  expedition  to 
destroy  those  stores.  Meanwhile,  however, 
the  patriots  were  in  great  doubt  as  to  the 
time  when  the  definite  movement  was  to 
be  made. 

Fully  appreciating  the  importance  of 
secrecy,  General  Gage  quietly  got  ready 
eight  hundred  picked  troops,  which  he 
meant  to  convey  under  cover  of  night  across 
the  West  Bay,  and  to  land  on  the  Cam- 
bridge side,  thus  baffling  the  vigilance  of 
the  townspeople,  and  at  the  same  time  con- 
108 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTEEES 

siderably  shortening  the  distance  his  troops 
would  have  to  march.  So  much  pains  was 
taken  to  keep  the  actual  destination  of 
these  troops  a  profound  secret,  that  even 
the  officer  who  was  selected  for  the  com- 
mand only  received  an  order  notifying 
him  to  hold  himself  in  readiness. 

"  The  guards  in  the  town  were  doubled," 
writes  Mr.  Drake,  "  and  in  order  to  inter- 
cept any  couriers  who  might  slip  through 
them,  at  the  proper  moment  mounted 
patrols  were  sent  out  on  the  roads  leading 
to  Concord.  Having  done  what  he  could 
to  prevent  intelligence  from  reaching  the 
country,  and  to  keep  the  town  quiet,  the 
British  general  gave  his  orders  for  the  em- 
barkation; and  at  between  ten  and  eleven 
of  the  night  of  April  18,  the  troops  des- 
tined for  this  service  were  taken  across  the 
bay  in  boats  to  the  Cambridge  side  of  the 
river.  A.t  this  hour,  Gage's  pickets  were 

109 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

guarding  the  deserted  roads  leading  into 
the  country,  and  up  to  this  moment  no 
patriot  courier  had  gone  out." 

Pulling  with  his  signals  and  Paul 
Revere  on  his  swift  horse  were  able,  how- 
ever, to  baffle  successfully  the  plans  of  the 
British  general.  The  redcoats  had  scarcely 
gotten  into  their  boats,  when  Dawes  and 
Paul  Revere  started  by  different  roads  to 
warn  Hancock  and  Adams,  and  the  people 
of  the  country-side,  that  the  regulars  were 
out.  Revere  rode  by  way  of  Charlestown, 
and  Dawes  by  the  great  highroad  over  the 
Neck.  Revere  had  hardly  got  clear  of 
Charlestown  when  he  discovered  that  he 
had  ridden  headlong  into  the  middle  of  the 
British  patrol !  Being  the  better  mounted, 
however,  he  soon  distanced  his  pursuers, 
and  entered  Medford,  shouting  like  mad, 
"  Up  and  arm !  Up  and  arm !  The  regu- 
lars are  out !  The  regulars  are  out !  " 
110 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

Longfellow  has  best  described  the  awak- 
ening of  the  country-side : 

"  A  hurry  of  hoofs  in  the  village  street, 

A  shape  in  the  moonlight,  a  bulk  in  the  dark, 

And   beneath,   from   the   pebbles,  in  passing,  a 


Struck  out  by  a  steed  flying  fearless  and  fleet ; 
That  was  all  !    And  yet,  through  the  gloom  and 

the  light, 

The  fate  of  a  nation  was  riding  that  night ; 
And  the  spark  struck  out  by  that  steed,  in  its 

flight, 
Kindled  the  land  into  flame  with  its  heat." 

The  Porter  house  in  Medford,  at  which 
Revere  stopped  long  enough  to  rouse  the 
captain  of  the  Guards,  and  Avarri  him  of 
the  approach  of  the  regulars,  is  now  no 
longer  standing,  but  the  Clark  place,  in 
Lexington,  where  the  proscribed  fellow- 
patriots,  Hancock  and  Adams,  were  lodg- 
ing that  night,  is  still  in  a  good  state  of 
preservation. 

The  room  occupied  by  "  King  "  Han- 
Ill 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

cock  and  "  Citizen  "  Adams  is  the  one  on 
the  lower  floor,  at  the  left  of  the  entrance. 
Hancock  was  at  this  time  visiting  this  par- 
ticular house  because  "  Dorothy  Q,"  his 
fiancee,  was  just  then  a  guest  of  the  place, 
and  martial  pride,  coupled,  perhaps,  with 
the  feeling  that  he  must  show  himself  in 
the  presence  of  his  lady-love  a  soldier 
worthy  of  her  favour,  inclined  him  to  show 
fight  when  he  heard  from  Revere  that  the 
regulars  were  expected.  His  widow  re- 
lated, in  after  years,  that  it  was  with  great 
difficulty  that  she  and  the  colonel's  aunt 
kept  him  from  facing  the  British  on  the 
day  following  the  midnight  ride.  While 
the  bell  in  the  green  was  sounding  the 
alarm,  Hancock  was  cleaning  his  sword 
and  his  fusee,  and  putting  his  accoutre- 
ments in  order.  He  is  said  to  have  been 
a  trifle  of  a  dandy  in  his  military  garb, 
and  his  points,  sword-knot,  and  lace,  were 
112 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAKD  EOOFTEEES 

always  of  the  newest  fashion.  Perhaps 
it  was  the  desire  to  show  himself  in  all 
his  war-paint  that  made  him  resist  so  long 
the  importunities  of  the  ladies,  and  the 
urgency  of  other  friends!  The  astute 
Adams,  it  is  recounted,  was  a  little  an- 
noyed at  his  friend's  obstinacy,  and,  clap- 
ping him  on  the  shoulder,  exclaimed,  as 
he  looked  significantly  at  the  weapons, 
"  That  is  not  our  business ;  we  belong  to 
the  cabinet."  * 

It  was  Adams  who  threw  light  on  the 
whole  situation.  Half  an  hour  after  Revere 
reached  the  house,  the  other  express  ar- 
rived, and  the  two  rebel  leaders,  being  now 
fully  convinced  that  it  was  Concord  which 
was  the  threatened  point,  hurried  the  mes- 
sengers on  to  the  next  town,  after  allowing 
them  barely  time  to  swallow  a  few  mouth- 

1  Drake's  "  Historic  Fields  and  Mansions  of  Mid- 
dlesex." Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  publishers. 

113 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

fuls  of  food.  Adams  did  not  believe  that 
Gage  would  send  an  army  merely  to  take 
two  men  prisoners.  To  him,  the  true  ob- 
ject of  the  expedition  was  very  clear. 

Revere,  Dawes,  and  young  Doctor  Pres- 
cott,  of  Concord,  who  had  joined  them,  had 
got  over  half  the  distance  to  the  next  town, 
when,  at  a  sudden  turning,  they  came  upon 
the  second  redcoat  patrol.  Prescott  leaped 
his  horse  over  the  roadside  wall,  and  so  es- 
caped across  the  fields  to  Concord.  Revere 
and  Dawes,  at  the  point  of  the  pistol,  gave 
themselves  up.  Their  business  on  the  road 
at  that  hour  was  demanded  by  the  officer, 
who  was  told  in  return  to  listen.  Then, 
through  the  still  morning  air,  the  distant 
booming  of  the  alarm  belPs  peal  on  peal 
was  borne  to  their  ears. 

It  was  the  British  who  were  now  uneasy. 
Ordering  the  prisoners  to  follow  them,  the 
troop  rode  off  at  a  gallop  toward  Lexington, 
114 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

and  when  they  were  at  the  edge  of  the  vil- 
lage, Revere  was  told  to  dismount,  and  was 
left  to  shift  for  himself.  He  then  ran  as 
fast  as  his  legs  could  carry  him  across  the 
pastures  back  to  the  Clark  parsonage,  to 
report  his  misadventure,  while  the  patrol 
galloped  off  toward  Boston  to  announce 
theirs.  But  by  this  time,  the  Minute  Men 
of  Lexington  had  rallied  to  oppose  the 
march  of  the  troops.  Thanks  to  the  in- 
trepidity of  Paul  Revere,  the  North  End 
coppersmith,  the  redcoats,  instead  of  sur- 
prising the  rebels  in  their  beds,  found  them 
marshalled  on  Lexington  Green,  and  at 
Concord  Bridge,  in  front,  flank,  and  rear, 
armed  and  ready  to  dispute  their  march  to 
the  bitter  end. 


"  You  know  the  rest.  In  the  books  you  have  read 
How  the  British  regulars  fired  and  fled  — 
How  the  farmers  gave  them  ball  for  ball, 
From  behind  each  fence  and  farmyard  wall, 

115 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

Chasing  the  redcoats  down  the  lane, 
Then  crossing  the  fields  to  emerge  again 
Under  the  trees  at  the  turn  of  the  road, 
And  only  pausing  to  fire  and  load. 

"  So  through  the  night  rode  Paul  Revere ; 

And  so  through  the  night  went  his  cry  of  alarm 

To  every  Middlesex  village  and  farm  — 

A  cry  of  defiance  and  not  of  fear, 

A  voice  in  the  darkness,  a  knock  at  the  door, 

And  a  word  that  shall  echo  for  evermore  1 

For,  borne  on  the  night  wind  of  the  past, 

Through  all  our  history,  to  the  last, 

The  people  will  waken  and  listen  to  hear 

The  hurrying  hoof  beats  of  that  steed, 

And  the  midnight  message  of  Paul  Revere."1 

1  "  Paul  Revere's  Ride  :  "    Longfellow's  Poems. 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  publishers. 

NOTE.  —  Mr.  W.  B.  Clarke,  of  Boston,  has  called 
the  writer's  attention  to  a  pamphlet  entitled  : 
"PAUL  REVERE'S  SIGNAL. — The  True  Story  of 

the  Signal  Lanterns  in  Christ  Church,  Boston. 

—  By  the  Rev.  John  Lee  Watson,  D.  D.  —  New 

York,  1880." 

which  seems  to  offer  convincing  proof  that  Cap- 
tain Pulling,  Paul  Revere's  intimate  from  boy- 
hood, and  not  sexton  Robert  Newman,  as  is 
generally  believed,  was  the  "friend"  mentioned 
in  Revere's  journal,  and  performed  the  patriotic 
office  of  hanging  the  lanterns. 

116 


HANCOCK'S    DOKOTHY    Q. 

HE  Dorothy  Q.  of  our  present 
interest  is  not  the  little  maiden 
of  Holmes's  charming  poem  — 


"  Grandmother's  mother  ;  her  age  I  guess, 
Thirteen  summers,  or  something  less  ; 
Girlish  bust,  but  womanly  air  ; 
Smooth,  square  forehead  with  uprolled  hair, 
Lips  that  lover  has  never  kissed  ; 
Taper  fingers  and  slender  wrist  ; 
Hanging  sleeves  of  stiff  brocade  ; 
So  they  painted  the  little  maid. 
On  her  hand  a  parrot  green 
Sits  unmoving  and  broods  serene.'* 

but  her  niece,  the  Dorothy  Q.  whom  John 
Hancock  loved,  and  was  visiting  at  Lexing- 
ton, when  Paul  Revere  warned  him  of  the 
redcoats'  approach.  This  Dorothy  hap- 

117 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

pened  to  be  staying  just  then  with  the 
Reverend  Jonas  Clark,  under  the  protec- 
tion of  Madam  Lydia  Hancock,  the  gov- 
ernor's aunt.  And  it  was  to  meet  her,  his 
fiancee,  that  Hancock  went,  on  the  eve  of 
the  19th  of  April,  to  the  house  made  fa- 
mous by  his  visit. 

One  imaginative  writer  has  sketched 
for  us  the  notable  group  gathered  that 
April  night  about  the  time-honoured 
hearthstone  in  the  modest  Lexington  par- 
sonage :  "  The  last  rays  of  the  setting  sun 
have  left  the  dampness  of  the  meadows 
to  gather  about  the  home ;  and  each  guest 
and  family  occupant  has  gladly  taken  seats 
within  the  house,  while  Mrs.  Jonas  Clark 
has  closed  the  shutters,  added  a  new  fore- 
log,  and  fanned  the  embers  to  a  cheerful 
flame.  The  young  couple  whom  Madam 
Hancock  has  studiously  brought  together 
exchange  sympathetic  glances  as  they  take 
118 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  BOOFTEEES 

Congress,  appointed  to  convene  at  Phila- 
delphia, May  10,  1775,  is  contained  in  a 
long  letter  to  Miss  Quincy.  This  letter, 
which  gives  a  rather  elaborate  account  of 
the  dangers  and  triumphs  of  the  patriot's 
journey,  concludes :  "  Pray  let  me  hear 
from  you  by  every  Post.  God  bless  you,  my 
dear  girl,  and  believe  me  most  Sincerely , 
Yours  most  Affectionately,  John  Han- 
cock." 

A  month  later,  June  10,  1775,  we  find 
the  charming  Dorothy  Q.,  now  the  guest  at 
Fairfield,  Connecticut,  of  Thaddeus  Burr, 
receiving  this  letter  from  her  lover : 

"  MY  DEAR  DOT.LY  :  —  I  am  almost  pre- 
vail'd  on  to  think  that  my  letters  to  my 
Aunt  &  you  are  not  read,  for  I  cannot  ob- 
tain a  reply,  I  have  ask'd  million  questions 
&  not  an  answer  to  one,  I  beg'd  you  to  let 

120 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOETKEES 

me  know  what  things  my  Aunt  wanted  & 
you  and  many  other  matters  I  wanted  to 
know  but  not  one  word  in  answer.  I 
Eeally  Take  it  extreme  unkind,  pray,  my 
dear,  use  not  so  much  Ceremony  &  Re- 
servedness,  why  can't  you  use  freedom  in 
writing,  be  not  afraid  of  me,  I  want  long 
Letters.  I  am  glad  the  little  things  I  sent 
you  were  agreeable.  Why  did  you  not 
write  me  of  the  top  of  the  Umbrella,  I 
am  sorry  it  was  spoiled,  but  I  will  send  you 
another  by  my  Express  which  will  go  in  a 
few  days.  How  did  my  Aunt  like  her 
gown,  &  let  me  know  if  the  Stockings 
suited  her;  she  had  better  send  a  pattern 
shoe  &  stocking,  I  warrant  I  will  suit  her. 
...  I  Beg,  my  dear  Dolly,  you  will  write 
me  often  and  long  Letters,  I  will  forgive 
the  past  if  you  will  mend  in  future.  Do 
ask  my  Aunt  to  make  me  up  and  send  me 

121 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

a  Watch  String,  and  do  you  make  up  an- 
other and  send  me,  I  wear  them  out  fast. 
I  want  some  little  thing  of  jour  doing. 
Kemember  me  to  all  my  Friends  with  you, 
as  if  named.  I  ani  Call'd  upon  and  must 
obey. 

"  I  have  sent  you  by  Doctor  Church  in  a 
paper  Box  Directed  to  you,  the  following 
things,  for  your  acceptance,  &  which  I  do 
insist  you  wear,  if  you  do  not  I  shall  think 
the  Donor  is  the  objection : 

2  pair  white  silk      ")  which  stockings 

4  pair  white  thread  )  I  think  will  fit  you 

1  pair  black  satin   ~)  Shoes,  the  other, 

1  pair  Calem  Co.    )  Shall  be  sent  when  done, 

1  very  pretty  light  hat 

1  neat  airy  summer  Cloak 

2  caps 
1  Fann 

"  I  wish  these  may  please  you,  I  shall  be 
gratified  if  they  do,  pray  write  me,  I  will 
attend  to  all  your  Commands., 
122 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

"  Adieu,  my  dear  Girl,  and  believe  me 
with,  great  Esteem  &  affection, 

"  Yours  without  reserve, 

"  JOHN  HANCOCK."  1 

It  is  interesting  to  know  that  while  Miss 
Quincy  was  a  guest  in  Fair  field,  Aaron 
Burr,  the  nephew  of  her  host,  came  to  the 
house,  and  that  his  magnetic  influence 
soon  had  an'  effect  upon  the  beautiful  young 
lady.  But  watchful  Aunt  Lydia  prevented 
the  charmer  from  thwarting  the  Hancock 
family  plans,  and  on  the  28th  day  of 
the  following  August  there  was  a  great 
wedding  at  Fairfield.  John  Hancock, 
president  of  the  Continental  Congress,  and 
Miss  Dorothy  Quincy  were  joined  in  mar- 
riage in  style  befitting  the  family  situa- 
tions. 

The  noted  couple  went  at  once  to  Phila- 

lNew  England  Magazine. 

123 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

delphia,  where  the  patriot  lived  at  inter- 
vals during  the  remainder  of  the  session. 
Mrs.  Hancock  seems  to  have  been  much  of 
the  time  in  Boston,  however,  and  occa- 
sionally, in  the  course  of  the  next  few 
years,  we  catch  delightful  glimpses  through 
her  husband's  letters  of  his  great  affection 
for  her,  and  for  their  little  one. 

Under  date  of  Philadelphia,  March  10, 
1777,  we  read:  "  I  shall  make  out  as  well 
as  I  can,  but  I  assure  you,  my  Dear  Soul, 
I  long  to  have  you  here,  &  I  know  you  will 
be  as  expeditious  as  you  can  in  coming. 
When  I  part  from  you  again  it  must  be 
a  very  extraordinary  occasion.  I  have  sent 
everywhere  to  get  a  gold  or  silver  rattle 
for  the  child  with  a  coral  to  send,  but  can- 
not get  one.  I  will  have  one  if  possible  on 
your  coming.  I  have  sent  a  sash  for  her 
&  two  little  papers  of  pins  for  you.  If  you 
do  not  want  them  you  can  give  them  away. 
124 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

.  .  .  May  every  blessing  of  an  Indulgent 
Providence  attend  you.  I  most  sincerely 
wish  you  a  good  journey  &  hope  I  shall 
soon  have  the  happiness  of  seeing  you  with 
the  utmost  affection  and  Love.  My  dear 
Dolly,  I  am  yours  forever, 

"  JOHN  HANCOCK." 

After  two  years  and  a  half  of  enforced 
absence,  the  President  of  the  Continental 
Congress  returned  home  to  that  beautiful 
house  on  Beacon  Street,  which  was  unfor- 
tunately destroyed  in  1863,  to  make  room 
for  a  more  modern  building.  Here  the 
united  couple  lived  very  happily  with  their 
two  children,  Lydia  and  Washington. 

Judging  by  descriptions  that  have  come 
down  to  us,  and  by  the  World's  Fair  repro- 
duction of  the  Hancock  House,  their  man- 
sion must  have  been  a  very  sumptuous  one. 
It  was  built  of  stone,  after  the  manner 

125 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

favoured  by  Bostonians  who  could  afford 
it,  with  massive  walls,  and  a  balcony  pro- 
jecting over  the  entrance  door,  upon  which 
a  large  second-story  window  opened. 
Braintree  stone  ornamented  the  corners 
and  window-places,  and  the  tiled  roof  was 
surrounded  by.  a  balustrade.  From  the 
roof,  dormer  windows  provided  a  beautiful 
view  of  the  surrounding  country.  The 
grounds  were  enclosed  by  a  low  stone  wall, 
on  which  was  placed  a  light  wooden  fence. 
The  house  itself  was  a  little  distance  back 
from  the  street,  and  the  approach  was  by 
means  of  a  dozen  stone  steps  and  a  care- 
fully paved  walk. 

At  the  right  of  the  entrance  was  a  recep- 
tion-room of  spacious  dimensions,  provided 
with  furniture  of  bird's-eye  maple,  covered 
with  rich  damask.  Out  of  this  opened 
the  dining-room,  sixty  feet  in  length,  in 
which  Hancock  was  wont  to  entertain. 
126 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

Opposite  was  a  smaller  apartment,  the 
usual  dining-room  of  the  family.  Next 
adjoining  were  the  china-room  and  offices, 
while  behind  were  to  be  found  the  coach- 
house and  barn  of  the  estate. 

The  family  drawing-room,  its  lofty  walls 
covered  with  crimson  paper,  was  at  the 
left  of  the  entrance.  The  upper  and  lower 
halls  of  the  house  were  hung  with  pictures 
of  game  and  with  hunting  scenes.  The 
furniture,  wall-papers  and  draperies 
throughout  the  house  had  been  imported 
from  England  by  Thomas  Hancock,  and 
expressed  the  height  of  luxury  for  that  day. 
Passing  through  the  hall,  a  flight  of  steps 
led  to  a  small  summer-house  in  the  garden, 
near  Mount  Vernon  Street,  and  here  the 
grounds  were  laid  out  in  ornamental  box- 
bordered  beds  like  those  still  to  be  seen 
in  the  beautiful  Washington  home  on  the 
Potomac.  A  highly  interesting  corner 

127 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOETEEEib 

of  the  garden  was  that  given  over  to  the 
group  of  mulberry-trees,  which  had  been 
imported  from  England  by  Thomas  Han- 
cock, the  uncle  of  John,  he  being,  with 
others  of  his  time,  immensely  interested 
in  the  culture  of  the  silkworm. 

Of  this  beautiful  home  Dorothy  Quincy 
showed  herself  well  fitted  to  be  mistress, 
and  through  her  native  grace  and  dignity 
admirably  performed  her  part  at  the  re- 
ception of  D'Estaing,  Lafayette,  Washing- 
ton, Brissot,  Lords  Stanley  and  Wortley, 
and  other  noted  guests. 

On  October  8,  1793,  Hancock  died,  at 
the  age  of  fifty-six  years.  The  last  re- 
corded letter  penned  in  his  letter  volume 
was  to  Captain  James  Scott,  his  lifelong 
friend.  And  it  was  to  this  Captain  Scott 
that  our  Dorothy  Q.  gave  her  hand  in  a 
second  marriage  three  years  later.  She 
outlived  her  second  husband  many  years, 
128 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

residing  at  the  end  of  her  life  on  Federal 
Street  in  Boston.  When  turned  of  seventy 
she  had  a  lithe,  handsome  figure,  a  pair  of 
laughing  eyes,  and  fine  yellow  ringlets  in 
which  scarcely  a  gray  hair  could  be  seen. 
And  although  for  the  second  time  a  widow, 
she  was  as  sprightly  as  a  girl  of  sixteen. 
In  her  advanced  years,  Madam  Scott  re- 
ceived another  call  from  Lafayette,  and 
those  who  witnessed  the  hearty  interview 
say  that  the  once  youthful  chevalier  and  the 
unrivalled  belle  met  as  if  only  a  summer 
had  passed  since  their  social  intercourse 
during  the  perils  of  the  Revolution. 


129 


BAEONESS  EIEDESEL  AND  HER 
TOEY    FEIENDS 

rHE    most   beautiful    example    of 
wifely  devotion  to  be  found  in  the 
annals  connected  with  the  war  of 
the  Revolution  is  that  afforded  by  the  story 
of  the   lovely   Baroness   Eiedesel,   whose 
husband  was  deputed  to  serve  at  the  head 
of  the  German  mercenaries  allied  to  the 
king's  troops,  and  who  was  herself,  with 
the  baron  and  her  children,  made  prisoner 
of  war  after  the  battle  of  Saratoga. 

Eiedesel  was  a  gallant  soldier,  and  his 
wife  a  fair  and  fascinating  young  woman 
at  this  time.    They  had  not  been  long  mar- 
ried when  the  war  in  America  broke  out, 
130 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOETEEES 

and  the  wife's  love  for  her  husband  was 
such  as  to  impel  her  to  dare  all  the  hard- 
ships of  the  journey  and  join  him  in  the 
foreign  land.  Her  letters  and  journal, 
which  give  a  lively  and  vivid  account  of 
the  perils  of  this  undertaking,  and  of  the 
pleasures  and  difficulties  that  she  expe- 
rienced after  she  had  succeeded  in  reaching 
her  dear  spouse,  supply  what  is  perhaps 
the  most  interesting  human  document  of 
those  long  years  of  war. 

The  baroness  landed  on  the  American 
continent  at  Quebec,  and  travelled  amid 
great  hardships  to  Chambly,  where  her 
husband  was  stationed.  For  two  days 
only  they  were  together.  After  that  she 
returned  with  her  children  to  Three  Rivers. 
Soon,  however,  came  the  orders  to  march 
down  into  the  enemy's  country. 

The  description  of  this  journey  as  the 
badness  has  given  it  to  us  makes,  indeed, 

131 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

moving  reading.  Once  a  frightful  cannon- 
ade was  directed  against  the  house  in 
which  the  women  and  the  wounded  had 
taken  refuge.  In  the  cellar  of  this  place 
Madam  Riedesel  and  her  children  passed 
the  entire  night.  It  was  in  this  cellar, 
indeed,  that  the  little  family  lived  during 
the  long  period  of  waiting  that  preceded 
the  capitulation  made  necessary  by  Bur- 
goyne's  inexcusable  delay  near  Saratoga. 
Later  the  Riedesels  were  most  hospitably 
entertained  at  Saratoga  by  General  Schuy- 
ler,  his  wife  and  daughters,  of  whom  the 
baroness  never  fails  to  speak  in  her  journal 
with  the  utmost  affection. 

The  journey  from  Albany  to  Boston  was 
full  of  incident  and  hardship,  but  of  it 
the  plucky  wife  writes  only :  "  In  the 
midst  of  all  my  trials  God  so  supported 
me  that  I  lost  neither  my  frolicsomeness 
nor  my  spirits.  .  .  ."  The  contrast  be- 

132 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

tween  the  station  of  the  Americans  and  of 
the  Germans  who  were  their  prisoners,  is 
strikingly  brought  out  in  this  passage  of 
the  diary :  "  Some  of  the  American  gen- 
erals who  were  in  charge  of  us  on  the 
march  to  Boston  were  shoemakers;  and 
upon  our  halting  days  they  made  boots  for 
our  officers,  and  also  mended  nicely  the 
shoes  of  our  soldiers.  They  set  a  great 
value  upon  our  money  coinage,  which  with 
them  was  scarce.  One  of  our  officers  had 
worn  his  boots  entirely  into  shreds.  He 
saw  that  an  American  general  had  on  a 
good  pair,  and  said  to  him,  jestingly,  i  I 
will  gladly  give  you  a  guinea  for  them.' 
Immediately  the  general  alighted  from  his 
horse,  took  the  guinea,  gave  up  his  boots, 
put  on  the  badly-worn  ones  of  the  officer, 
and  again  mounted  his  horse." 

The  journey  was  at  length  successfully 
accomplished,  however,  and  in  Massachu- 

133 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

setts  the  baroness  was  on  the  whole  very 
well  treated,  it  would  seem. 

"  We  remained  three  weeks  in  wretched 
quarters  at  Winter  Hill,"  she  writes, 
"  until  they  transferred  us  to  Cambridge, 
where  they  lodged  us  in  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  houses  of  the  place,  which  had 
formerly  been  built  by  the  wealth  of  the 
royalists.  Never  had  I  chanced  upon  any 
such  agreeable  situation.  Seven  families, 
who  were  connected  with  each  other  partly 
by  the  ties  of  relationship  and  partly  by 
affection,  had  here  farms,  gardens,  and 
magnificent  houses,  and  not  far  off  planta- 
tions of  fruit.  The  owners  of  these  were 
in  the  habit  of  meeting  each  other  in  the 
afternoon,  now  at  the  bouse  of  one»,  and  now 
at  another,  and  making  themselves  merry 
with  music  and  the  dance  —  living  in 
prosperity  united  and  happy,  until,  alas! 
this  ruinous  war  severed  them,  and  left 
134 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

all  their  houses  desolate  except  two,  the 
proprietors  of  which  were  also  soon  obliged 
to  flee.  .  .  . 

"  None  of  our  gentlemen  were  allowed 
to  go  into  Boston.  Curiosity  and  desire 
urged  me,  however,  to  pay  a  visit  to  Madam 
Carter,  the  daughter  of  General  Schuyler, 
and  I  dined  at  her  house  several  times. 
The  city  throughout  is  pretty,  but  inhab- 
ited by  violent  patriots,  and  full  of  wicked 
people.  The  women  especially  were  so 
shameless,  that  they  regarded  me  with  re- 
pugnance, and  even  spit  at  me  when  I 
passed  by  them.  Madam  Carter  was  as 
gentle  and  good  as  her  parents,  but  her 
husband  was  wicked  and  treacherous.  She 
came  often  to  visit  us,  and  also  dined  at 
our  house  with  the  other  generals.  We 
sought  to  show  them  by  every  means  our 
gratitude.  They  seemed  also  to  have  much 
friendship  for  us;  and  yet  at  the  same 

135 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTEEES 

time  this  miserable  Carter,  when  the 
English  General  Howe  had  burned  many 
hamlets  and  small  towns,  made  the  hor- 
rible proposition  to  the  Americans  to  chop 
off  the  heads  of  our  generals,  salt  them 
down  in  small  barrels,  and  send  over  to 
the  English  one  of  these  barrels  for  every 
hamlet  or  little  town  burned  down.  But 
this  barbarous  suggestion  fortunately  was 
not  adopted. 

"  .  .  .  I  saw  here  that  nothing  is  more 
terrible  than  a  civil  war.  Almost  every 
family  was  disunited.  .  .  .  On  the  third 
of  June,  1778,  I  gave  a  ball  and  supper 
in  celebration  of  the  birthday  of  my  hus- 
band. I  had  invited  to  it  all  the  generals 
and  officers.  The  Carters  also  were  there. 
General  Burgoyne  sent  an  excuse  after  he 
had  made  us  wait  until  eight  o'clock  in  the 
evening.  He  invariably  excused  himself 
on  various  pretences  from  coming  to  see 
136 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

us  until  his  departure  for  England,  when 
he  came  and  made  me  a  great  many  apolo- 
gies, but  to  which  I  made  no  other  answer 
than  that  I  should  be  extremely  sorry  if 
he  had  gone  out  of  his  way  on  our  account. 
We  danced  considerably,  and  our  cook  pre- 
pared us  a  magnificent  supper  of  more 
than  eighty  covers.  Moreover,  our  court- 
yard and  garden  were  illuminated.  As  the 
birthday  of  the  King  of  England  came 
upon  the  following  day,  which  was  the 
fourth,  it  was  resolved  that  we  would  not 
separate  until  his  health  had  been  drank; 
which  was  done  with  the  most  hearty 
attachment  to  his  person  and  his  interests. 
"  Never,  I  believe,  has  '  God  Save  the 
King/  been  drunk  with  more  enthusiasm 
or  more  genuine  good  will.  Even  both 
my  oldest  little  daughters  were  there,  hav- 
ing stayed  up  to  see  the  illumination.  All 
eyes  were  full  of  tears ;  and  it  seemed  as 

137 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

if  every  one  present  was  proud  to  have 
the  spirit  to  venture  to  this  in  the  midst 
of  our  enemies.  Even  the  Carters  could 
not  shut  their  hearts  against  us.  As  soon 
as  the  company  separated,  we  perceived 
that  the  whole  house  was  surrounded  by 
Americans,  who,  having  seen  so  many  peo- 
ple go  into  the  house,  and  having  noticed 
also  the  illumination,  suspected  that  we 
were  planning  a  mutiny,  and  if  the  slight- 
est disturbance  had  arisen  it  would  have 
cost  us  dear.  .  .  . 

"  The  Americans,"  says  the  baroness, 
further  on,  "  when  they  desire  to  collect 
their  troops  together,  place  burning  torches 
of  pitch  upon  the  hilltops,  at  which  signal 
every  one  hastens  to  the  rendezvous.  We 
were  once  witnesses  of  this  when  General 
Howe  attemped  a  landing  at  Boston  in 
order  to  rescue  the  captive  troops.  They 
learned  of  this  plan,  as  usual,  long  before- 
138 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

hand,  and  opened  barrels  of  pitch,  where- 
upon for  three  or  four  successive  days  a 
large  number  of  people  without  shoes  and 
stockings,  and  with  guns  011  their  backs, 
were  seen  hastily  coming  from  all  direc- 
tions, by  which  means  so  many  people 
came  together  so  soon  that  it  would  have 
been  a  very  difficult  thing  to  effect  a 
landing. 

"  We  lived  very  happily  and  contented 
in  Cambridge,  and  were  therefore  well 
pleased  at  remaining  there  during  the 
captivity  of  our  troops.  As  winter  ap- 
proached, however,  we  were  ordered  to 
Virginia  [because  of  the  difficulty  of  pro- 
viding provisions],  and  in  the  month  of 
November,  1778,  set  out. 

"  My  husband,  fortunately,  found  a 
pretty  English  wagon,  and  bought  it  for 
me,  so  that  as  before  I  was  enabled  to 
travel  comfortably.  My  little  Gustava 

139 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

had  entreated  one  of  my  husband's  adju- 
tants, Captain  Edmonston,  not  to  leave  us 
on  the  way.  The  confiding  manner  of  the 
child  touched  him  and  he  gave  his  promise 
and  faithfully  kept  it.  I  travelled  always 
with  the  army  and  often  over  almost  im- 
passable roads.  .  .  . 

"  I  had  always  provisions  with  me,  but 
carried  them  in  a  second  small  wagon.  As 
this  could  not  go  as  fast  as  we,  I  was  often 
in  want  of  everything.  Once  when  we 
were  passing  a  town  called  Hertford 
[Hartford,  Connecticut],  we  made  a  halt, 
which,  by  the  by,  happened  every  fourth 
day.  We  there  met  General  Lafayette, 
whom  my  husband  invited  to  dinner,  as 
otherwise  he  would  have  been  unable  to 
find  anything  to  eat.  This  placed  me  in 
rather  an  awkward  dilemma  as  I  knew 
that  he  loved  a  good  dinner.  Finally, 
however,  I  managed  to  glean  from  what 
140 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOETEEES 

provisions  I  had  on  hand  enough  to  make 
him  a  very  respectable  meal.  He  was  so 
polite  and  agreeable  that  he  pleased  us  all 
very  much.  He  had  many  Americans  in 
his  train,  though,  who  were  ready  to  leap 
out  of  their  skins  for  vexation  at  hearing 
us  speak  constantly  in  French.  Perhaps 
they  feared,  on  seeing  us  on  such  a  friendly 
footing  with  him,  that  we  would  be  able 
to  alienate  him  from  their  cause,  or  that 
he  would  confide  things  to  us  that  we  ought 
not  to  know. 

"  Lafayette  spoke  much  of  England, 
and  of  the  kindness  of  the  king  in  having 
had  all  objects  of  interest  shown  to  him. 
I  could  not  keep  myself  from  asking  him 
how  he  could  find  it  in  his  heart  to  accept 
so  many  marks  of  kindness  from  the  king 
when  he  was  on  the  point  of  departing  in 
order  to  fight  against  him.  Upon  this  ob- 
servation of  mine  he  appeared  somewhat 

141 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

ashamed,  and  aaiswered  me :  i  It  is  true 
that  such  a  thought  passed  through  my 
mind  one  day,  when  the  king  offered  to 
show  me  his  fleet.  I  answered  that  I  hoped 
to  see  it  some  day,  and  then  quietly  retired, 
in  order  to  escape  from  the  embarrassment 
of  being  obliged  to  decline,  point  blank, 
the  offer,  should  it  be  repeated.'  " 

The  baroness's  own  meeting  with  the 
king  soon  after  her  return  to  England, 
in  the  autumn  of  1780,  when  the  prisoners 
were  exchanged,  is  thus  entertainingly 
described :  "  One  day  when  we  were  yet 
seated  at  table,  the  queen's  first  lady  of 
honour,  my  Lady  Howard,  sent  us  a  mes- 
sage to  the  effect  that  her  Majesty  would 
receive  us  at  six  o'clock  that  afternoon. 
As  my  court  dress  was  not  yet  ready,  and 
I  had  nothing  with  me  proper  to  wear, 
I  sent  my  apologies  for  not  going  at  that 
time,  which  I  again  repeated  when  we  had 
142 


OLD  JSTEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

the  honour  of  being  presented  to  their  Maj- 
esties, who  were  both  present  at  the  recep- 
tion. The  queen,  however,  as  did  also  the 
king,  received  us  with  extraordinary  gra- 
ciousness,  and  replied  to  my  excuses  by 
saying,  '  We  do  not  look  at  the  dress  of 
those  persons  we  are  glad  to  see.' 

"  They  were  surrounded  by  the  prin- 
cesses, their  daughters.  We  seated  our- 
selves before  the  chimney-fire,  —  the 
queen,  the  princesses,  the  first  lady  of 
honour,  and  myself,  —  forming  a  half- 
circle,  my  husband,  with  the  king,  stand- 
ing in  the  centre  close  to  the  fire.  Tea 
and  cakes  were  then  passed  round.  I  sat 
between  the  queen  and  one  of  the  prin- 
cesses, and  was  obliged  to  go  over  a  great 
part  of  my  adventures.  Her  majesty  said 
to  me  very  graciously,  '  I  have  followed 
you  everywhere,  and  have  often  inquired 
after  you ;  and  I  have  always  heard  with 

143 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

delight  that  you  were  well,  contented,  and 
beloved  by  every  one.'  I  happened  to  have 
at  this  time  a  shocking  cough.  Observing 
this,  the  Princess  Sophia  went  herself  and 
brought  me  a  jelly  made  of  black  currants, 
which  she  represented  as  a  particularly 
good  remedy,  and  forced  me  to  accept  a 
jar  full. 

"  About  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening  the 
Prince  of  Wales  came  in.  His  youngest 
sisters  nocked  around  him,  and  he  em- 
braced them  and  danced  them  around. 
In  short,  the  royal  family  had  such  a  pecul- 
iar gift  for  removing  all  restraint  that 
one  could  readily  imagine  himself  to  be 
in  a  cheerful  family  circle  of  his  own 
station  in  life.  We  remained  with  them 
until  ten  o'clock,  and  the  king  conversed 
much  with  my  husband  about  America  in 
German,  which  he  spoke  exceedingly  well." 

From  England  the  baroness  proceeded 
144 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

(in  1783),  to  her  home  in  Brunswick, 
where  she  was  joyfully  received,  and 
where,  after  her  husband's  triumph,  they 
enjoyed  together  respite  from  war  for  a 
period  of  four  years.  In  1794,  General 
Riedesel  was  appointed  commandant  of 
the  city  of  Brunswick,  where  he  died  in 
1800.  The  haroness  survived  him  eight 
years,  passing  away  in  Berlin,  March  29, 
1808,  at  the  age  of  sixty-two.  She  rests 
beside  her  beloved  consort  in  the  family 
vault  at  Lauterbach.  „ 

Her  Cambridge  residence,  which  for- 
merly stood  at  the  corner  of  Sparks  Street, 
on  Brattle,  among  the  beautiful  lindens 
so  often  mentioned  in  the  "  journal,"  has 
recently  been  remodelled  and  removed  to 
the  next  lot  but  one  from  its  original  site. 
It  now  looks  as  in  the  picture,  and  is 
numbered  149  Brattle  Street.  A  little 
street  at  the  right  has  been  appropriately 

145 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

named  Riedesel  Avenue.  Yet  even  in  his- 
tory-loving Cambridge  there  is  little  famil- 
iarity with  the  career  of  the  baron  and  his 
charming  lady,  and  there  are  few  persons 
who  have  read  the  entertaining  journal, 
written  in  German  a  century  and  a  quarter 
ago  by  this  clever  and  devoted  wife. 


146 


DOCTOR   CHTJKCH:    FIRST   TRAI- 
TOR  TO  THE  AMERICAN  CAUSE 


y~T~ERY  few  old  houses  retain  at  the 
y  present  time  so  large  a  share 
of  the  dignity  and  picturesque- 
ness  originally  theirs,  as  does  the  home- 
stead whose  chief  interest  for  us  lies  in  the 
fact  that  it  was  the  Revolutionary  prison 
of  Doctor  Benjamin  Church,  the  first-dis- 
covered traitor  to  the  American  cause. 
This  house  is  on  Brattle  Street,  at  the 
corner  of  Hawthorn.  Built  about  1700, 
it  came  early  into  the  possession  of  Jona- 
than Belcher,  who  afterward  became  Sir 
Jonathan,  and  from  1730  till  1741  was 

147 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

governor  of  Massachusetts  and  New 
Hampshire.  Colonel  John  Vassall  the 
elder  was  the  next  owner  of  the  house,  ac- 
quiring it  in  1736,  and  somewhat  later 
conveying  it,  with  its  adjoining  estate  of 
seven  acres,  to  his  brother,  Major  Henry, 
an  officer  in  the  militia,  who  died  under  its 
roof  in  1769. 

Major  Henry  Vassall  had  married  Pen- 
elope, sister  of  Isaac  Royall,  the  proprietor 
of  the  beautiful  place  at  Medford,  but 
upon  the  beginning  of  hostilities,  this 
sprightly  widow  abandoned  her  spacious 
home  in  such  haste  that  she  carried  along 
with  her,  according  to  tradition,  a  young 
companion  whom  she  had  not  time  to 
restore  to  her  friends !  Such  of  her  prop- 
erty as  could  be  used  by  the  colony  forces 
was  given  in  charge  of  Colonel  Stark, 
while  the  rest  was  allowed  to  pass  into 
Boston.  The  barns  and  roomy  outbuild- 
148 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

ings   were   used   for   the   storage   of   the 
colony  forage. 

It  is  highly  probable  that  the  Widow 
Vassal!' s  house  at  once  became  the  Amer- 
ican hospital,  and  that  it  was  the  resi- 
dence, as  it  was  certainly  the  prison,  of 
Doctor  Benjamin  Church.  Church  had 
been  placed  at  the  head  of  an  army  hospi- 
tal for  the  accommodation  of  twenty  thou- 
sand men,  and  till  this  time  had  seemed 
a  brave  and  zealous  compatriot  of  Warren 
and  the  other  leading  men  of  the  time. 
Soon  after  his  appointment,  he  was,  how- 
ever, detected  in  secret  correspondence  with 
Gage.  He  had  entrusted  to  a  woman  of 
his  acquaintance  a  letter  written  in  cipher 
to  be  forwarded  to  the  British  commander. 
This  letter  was  found  upon  the  girl,  she 
was  taken  to  headquarters,  and  there  the 
contents  of  the  fatal  message  were  de- 
ciphered and  the  defection  of  Doctor 

149 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

Church  established.  When  questioned  by 
Washington  he  appeared  utterly  con- 
founded, and  made  no  attempt  to  vindicate 
himself. 

The  letter  itself  did  not  contain  any 
intelligence  of  importance,  but  the  dis- 
covery that  one,  until  then  so  high  in  the 
esteem  of  his  countrymen,  was  engaged  in 
a  clandestine  correspondence  with  the 
enemy  was  deemed  sufficient  evidence  of 
guilt.  Church  was  therefore  arrested  at 
once,  and  confined  in  a  chamber  looking 
upon  Brattle  Street.  Some  of  his  leisure, 
while  here  imprisoned,  he  employed  in 
cutting  on  the  door  of  a  closet : 

"B   CHURCH,  JR." 

There  the  marks  still  remain,  their  sig- 
nificance having  after  a  half  century  been 
interpreted  by  a  lady  of  the  house  to  whom 
150 


OLD  JSTEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

they  had  long  been  familiar,  but  who  had 
lacked  any  clue  to  their  origin  until,  in 
the  course  of  a  private  investigation,  she 
determined  beyond  a  doubt  their  relation 
to  Church.  The  chamber  has  two  windows 
in  the  north  front,  and  two  overlooking  the 
area  on  the  south. 

Church's  fall  was  the  more  terrible  be- 
cause from  a  height.  He  was  a  member 
of  a  very  distinguished  family,  and  he  had 
been  afforded  in  his  youth  all  the  best 
opportunities  of  the  day.  In  1754  he  was 
graduated  at  Harvard,  and  after  studying 
with  Doctor  Pynchon  rose  to  considerable 
eminence  as  a  physician  and  particularly 
as  a  surgeon.  Besides  talents  and  genius 
of  a  sort,  he  was  endowed  with  a  rare 
poetic  fancy,  many  of  his  verses  being  full 
of  daintiness  as  well  as  of  a  very  pretty 
wit.  He  was,  however,  somewhat  extrava- 
gant in  his  habits,  and  about  1768  had 

151 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

built  himself  an  elegant  country  house 
near  Boston.  It  was  to  sustain  this,  it  is 
believed,  that  he  sold  himself  to  the  king's 
cause. 

To  all  appearance,  however,  Church  was 
up  to  the  very  hour  of  his  detection  one 
of  the  leading  patriots  of  the  time.  He 
had  been  chosen  to  deliver  the  oration  in 
the  Old  South  Meeting-House  on  March  5, 
IT 7 3,  and  he  there  pronounced  a  stirring 
discourse,  which  has  still  power  to  thrill 
the  reader,  upon  the  massacre  the  day  cele- 
brates, and  the  love  of  liberty  which 
inspired  the  patriots'  revolt  on  that  memo- 
rable occasion.  Yet  two  years  earlier,  as 
we  have  since  discovered  from  a  letter  of 
Governor  Hutchinson,  he  had  been  anony- 
mously employing  his  venal  pen  in  the 
service  of  the  government! 

In  1774,  when  he  was  a  member  of  the 
Provincial  Congress,  he  was  first  suspected 
152 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

of  communication  with  Gage,  and  of  re- 
ceiving a  reward  for  his  treachery.  Paul 
Revere  has  written  concerning  this :  "  In 
the  fall  of  "74  and  the  winter  of  '75  I 
was  one  of  upwards  of  thirty,  chiefly 
mechanics,  who  formed  themselves  into  a 
committee  for  the  purpose  of  watching  the 
movements  of  the  British  soldiers  and 
gaining  every  intelligence  of  the  Tories. 
We  held  our  meetings  at  the  Green  Dragon 
Tavern.  This  committee  were  astonished 
to  find  all  their  secrets  known  to  General 
Gage,  although  every  time  they  met  every 
member  swore  not  to  reveal  any  of  their 
transactions  except  to  Hancock,  Adams, 
Warren,  Otis,  Church,  and  one  or  two 
others." 

The  traitor,  of  course,  proved  to  be 
Doctor  Church.  One  of  his  students  who 
kept  his  books  and  knew  of  his  money 
embarrassment  first  mistrusted  him.  Only 

153 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

treachery,  he  felt,  could  account  for  his 
master's  sudden  acquisition  of  some  hun- 
dreds of  new  British  guineas. 

The  doctor  was  called  before  a  council 
of  war  consisting  of  all  the  major-generals 
and  brigadiers  of  the  army,  beside  the 
adjutant-general,  Washington  himself 
presiding.  This  tribunal  decided  that 
Church's  acts  had  been  criminal,  but  re- 
manded him  for  the  decision  of  the  General 
Court,  of  which  he  was  a  member.  He  was 
taken  in  a  chaise,  escorted  by  General 
Gates  and  a  guard  of  twenty  men,  to  the 
music  of  fife  and  drum,  to  Watertown 
meeting-house,  where  the  court  sat.  "  The 
galleries,"  says  an  old  writer,  "  were 
thronged  with  people  of  all  ranks.  The 
bar  was  placed  in  the  middle  of  the  broad 
aisle,  and  the  doctor  arraigned."  His  de- 
fence at  the  trial  was  very  ingenious  and 
able :  —  that  the  fatal  letter  was  designed 
154 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

for  his  brother,  but  that  since  it  was  not 
sent  he  had  communicated  no  intelligence ; 
that  there  was  nothing  in  the  letter  but 
notorious  facts;  that  his  exaggerations  of 
the  American  force  could  only  be  designed 
to  favour  the  cause  of  his  country;  and 
that  his  object  was  purely  patriotic.  He 
added,  in  a  burst  of  sounding  though  un- 
convincing oratory :  "  The  warmest  bosom 
here  does  not  flame  with  a  brighter  zeal 
for  the  security,  happiness,  and  liberties  of 
America  than  mine." 

These  eloquent  professions  did  not  avail 
him,  however.  He  was  adjudged  guilty, 
and  expelled  from  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives of  Massachusetts.  By  order  of 
the  General  Congress,  he  was  condemned 
to  close  confinement  in  Norwich  jail  in 
Connecticiit,  "  and  debarred  from  the  use 
of  pen,  ink,  and  paper,"  but  his  health 
failing,  he  was  allowed  (in  1776)  to  leave 

155 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

the  country.  He  sailed  for  the  West 
Indies,  —  and  the  vessel  that  bore  him 
was  never  afterward  heard  from. 

Some  people  in  Church's  time,  as  well 
as  our  own,  have  been  disposed  to  doubt 
the  man's  treachery,  but  Paul  Revere  was 
firmly  convinced  that  the  doctor  was  in 
the  pay  of  General  Gage.  Revere's  state- 
ment runs  in  part  as  follows : 

"  The  same  day  I  met  Doctor  Warren. 
He  was  president  of  the  Committee  of 
Safety.  He  engaged  me  as  a  messenger 
to  do  the  out-of-doors  business  for  that 
committee ;  which  gave  me  an  opportunity 
of  being  frequently  with  them.  The  Fri- 
day evening  after,  about  sunset,  I  was 
sitting  with  some  or  near  all  that  com- 
mittee in  their  room,  which  was  at  Mr. 
Hastings's  house  in  Cambridge.  Doctor 
Church  all  at  once  started  up.  'Doctor 

156 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

Warren/  said  he,  '  I  am  determined  to  go 
into  Boston  to-morrow.'  (It  set  them  all 
a-staring. )  Doctor  Warren  replied,  '  Are 
you  serious,  Doctor  Church  ?  They  will 
hang  you  if  they  catch  you  in  Boston.' 
He  replied,  '  I  am  serious,  and  am  deter- 
mined to  go  at  all  adventures.'  After  a 
considerable  conversation,  Doctor  Warren 
said,  '  If  you  are  determined,  let  us  make 
some  business  for  you.'  They  agreed  that 
he  should  go  to  get  medicine  for  their  and 
our  wounded  officers." 

Naturally,  Paul  Revere,  who  was  an 
ardent  patriot  as  well  as  an  exceedingly 
straightforward  man,  had  little  sympathy 
with  Church's  weakness,  but  to-day  as  one 
looks  at  the  initials  scratched  by  the  pris- 
oner on  the  door  of  his  cell,  one's  heart 
expands  with  pity  for  the  man,  and  one 
wonders  long  and  long  whether  the  vessel 

157 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOETREES 

on  which  he  sailed  was  really  lost,  or 
whether  he  escaped  on  it  to  foreign  shores, 
there  to  expiate  as  best  he  could  his  sin 
against  himself  and  his  country. 


158 


A  VICTIM  OF  TWO  REVOLUTIONS 

/N  the  life  of  Colonel  James  Swan,  as 
in  that  of  Doctor  Benjamin  Church, 
money  was  the  root  of  all  evil.    Swan 
was  almost  a  fool  because  of  his  pig-head- 
edness  in  financial  adversity,  and  Church 
was   ever   a   knave,   plausible   even   when 
proved  guilty.      Yet  both   fell   from  the 
same  cause,  utter  inability  to  keep  money 
and  avoid  debt. 

Colonel  Swan's  history  reads  very  like 
a  romance.  He  was  born  in  Fifeshire, 
Scotland,  in  1754,  and  carne  to  America 
in  1765.  He  found  employment  in  Bos- 
ton, and  devoted  all  his  spare  time  to 
books.  While  a  clerk  of  eighteen,  in  a 

159 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

counting-house  near  Eaneuil  Hall;  he  pub- 
lished a  work  on  the  African  slave  trade, 
entitled,  "  A  Discussion  of  Great  Britain 
and  Her  Colonies  from  the  Slave  Trade," 
a  copy  of  which,  preserved  in  the  Boston 
Public  Library,  is  well  worth  reading  for 
its  flavour  and  wit. 

While  serving  an  apprenticeship  with 
Thaxter  &  Son,  he  formed  an  intimate 
friendship  with  several  other  clerks  who, 
in  after  years,  became  widely  known, 
among  them,  Benjamin  Thompson,  after- 
ward made  Count  Rumford,  and  Henry 
Knox,  who  later  became  the  bookseller  on 
Cornhill,  and  finally  a  general  in  the  Con- 
tinental army. 

Swan  was  a  member  of  the  Sons  of  Lib- 
erty, and  took  part  in  the  famous  Boston 
tea-party.  He  was  engaged  in  the  battle 
of  Bunker  Hill  as  a  volunteer  aid  of  War- 
ren, and  was  twice  wounded.  He  also 
160 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

witnessed  the  evacuation  of  Boston  by  the 
British,  March  17,  1776.  He  later  be- 
came secretary  of  the  Massachusetts  board 
of  war,  and  was  elected  a  member  of  the 
legislature.  Throughout  the  whole  war 
he  occupied  positions  of  trust,  often  re- 
quiring great  courage  and  cool  judgment, 
and  the  fidelity  with  which  every  duty  was 
performed  was  shown  by  the  honours  con- 
ferred upon  him  after  retiring  to  civil 
life.  By  means  of  a  large  fortune  which 
fell  to  him,  he  entered  mercantile  business 
on  a  large  scale,  and  became  very  wealthy. 
He  owned  large  tracts  of  land  in  different 
parts  of  the  country,  and  bought  much  of 
the  confiscated  property  of  the  Tories, 
among  other  lands  the  estate  belonging  to 
Governor  Hutchinson,  lying  on  Tremont 
Street,  between  West  and  Boylston  Streets. 
His  large  speculations,  however,  caused 
him  to  become  deeply  involved  in  debt. 

161 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

In  1787,  accordingly,  he  started  out  anew 
to  make  a  fortune,  and  through  the  in- 
fluence of  Lafayette  and  other  men  of 
prominence  in  Paris,  he  secured  many 
government  contracts  which  entailed  im- 
mense profit.  Through  all  the  dark  days 
of  the  French  Revolution,  he  tried  to  serve 
the  cause  of  the  proscribed  French  nobility 
by  perfecting  plans  for  them  to  colonise 
on  his  lands  in  America.  A  large  number 
he  induced  to  immigrate,  and  a  vast  quan- 
tity of  the  furniture  and  belongings  of 
these  unfortunates  was  received  on  board 
his  ships.  But  before  the  owners  could 
follow  their  furniture,  the  axe  had  fallen 
upon  their  heads. 

When  the  Reign  of  Terror  was  at  its 
height,  the  Sally,  owned  by  Colonel  Swan, 
and  commanded  by  Captain  Stephen 
Clough,  of  Wiscasset,  Maine,  came  home 
with  a  strange  cargo  and  a  stranger  story. 
162 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

The  cargo  consisted  of  French  tapestries, 
marquetry,  silver  with  foreign  crests,  rare 
vases,  clocks,  costly  furniture,  and  no  end 
of  apparelling  fit  for  a  queen.  The  story 
was  that,  only  for  the  failure  at  the  last 
moment  of  a  plot  for  her  deliverance, 
Marie  Antoinette  would  also  have  been  on 
the  sloop,  the  plan  being  that  she  should 
be  the  guest  at  Wiscasset  of  the  captain's 
wife  until  she  could  be  transferred  to  a 
safer  retreat. 

However  true  may  be  the  rumour  of  a 
plot  to  bring  Marie  Antoinette  to  America, 
it  is  certain  that  the  furniture  brought  on 
the  Sally,  was  of  exceptional  value  and 
beauty.  It  found  its  resting-place  in  the 
old  Swan  house  of  our  picture,  to  which 
it  gave  for  many  years  the  name  of  the 
Marie  Antoinette  house.  One  room  was 
even  called  the  Marie  Antoinette  room, 
and  the  bedstead  of  this  apartment,  which 

163 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

is  to-day  in  the  possession  of  the  descend- 
ants of  Colonel  Swan,  is  still  known  as  the 
Marie  Antoinette  bedstead.  Whether  the 
unhappy  queen  ever  really  rested  on  this 
bed  cannot,  of  course,  be  said,  but  tradition 
has  it  that  it  was  designed  for  her  use  in 
America  because  she  had  found  it  com- 
fortable in  France. 

Colonel  Swan,  having  paid  all  his  debts, 
returned  in  1795  to  the  United  States, 
accompanied  by  the  beautiful  and  eccentric 
gentlewoman  who  was  his  wife,  and  who 
had  been  with  her  husband  in  Paris  during 
the  Terror.  They  brought  with  them  on 
this  occasion  a  very  large  collection  of  fine 
French  furniture,  decorations,  and  paint- 
ings. The  colonel  had  become  very 
wealthy  indeed  through  his  commercial 
enterprises,  and  was  now  able  to  spend  a 
great  deal  of  money  upon  his  fine  Dorches- 
ter mansion,  which  he  finished  about  the 
164 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

year  1796.  A  prominent  figure  of  the 
house  was  the  circular  dining-hall,  thirty- 
two  feet  in  diameter,  crowned  at  the  height 
of  perhaps  twenty-five  feet  by  a  dome, 
and  having  three  mirror  windows.  As 
originally  built,  it  contained  no  fireplaces 
or  heating  conveniences  of  any  kind. 

Mrs.  Swan  accompanied  her  husband 
on  several  subsequent  trips  to  Paris,  and 
it  was  on  one  of  these  occasions  that  the 
colonel  came  to  great  grief.  He  had  con- 
tracted, it  is  said,  a  debt  claimed  in  France 
to  be  two  million  francs.  This  indebted- 
ness he  denied,  and  in  spite  of  the  per- 
suasion of  his  friends  he  would  make  no 
concession  in  the  matter.  As  a  matter  of 
principle  he  would  not  pay  a  debt  which, 
he  insisted,  he  did  not  owe.  He  seems 
to  have  believed  the  claim  of  his  creditor 
to  be  a  plot,  and  he  at  once  resolved  to  be 
a  martyr.  He  was  thereupon  arrested,  and 

165 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

confined  in  St.  Pelagie,  a  debtor's  prison, 
from  1808  to  1830,  a  period  of  twenty-two 
years ! 

He  steadfastly  denied  the  charge  against 
him,  and,  although  able  to  settle  the  debt, 
preferred  to  remain  a  prisoner  to  securing 
his  liberty  on  an  unjust  plea.  .  .  .  He 
gave  up  his  wife,  children,  friends,  and  the 
comforts  of  his  Parisian  and  New  England 
homes  for  a  principle,  and  made  prepara- 
tions for  a  long  stay  in  prison.  Lafayette, 
Swan's  sincere  friend,  tried  in  vain  to  pre- 
vail upon  him  to  take  his  liberty.1 

Doctor  Small,  his  biographer,  tells  us 
that  he  lived  in  a  little  cell  in  the  prison, 
and  was  treated  with  great  respect  by  the 
other  prisoners,  they  putting  aside  their 
little  furnaces  with  which  they  cooked,  that 
he  might  have  more  room  for  exercise. 
Not  a  day  passed  without  some  kind  act 

i  «« History  of  Swan's  Island." 
166 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

on  his  part,  and  he  was  known  to  have  been 
the  cause  of  the  liberation  of  many  poor 
debtors.  When  the  jailor  introduced  his 
pretended  creditor,  he  would  politely  salute 
him,  and  say  to  the  former :  "  My  friend, 
return  me  to  my  chamber." 

With  funds  sent  by  his  wife,  Swan  hired 
apartments  in  the  Rue  de  la  Clif,  opposite 
St.  Pelagie,  which  he  caused  to  be  fitted 
up  at  great  expense.  Here  were  dining 
and  drawing  rooms,  coaches,  and  stables, 
and  outhouses.,  and  here  he  invited  his 
guests  and  lodged  his  servants,  putting  at 
the  disposal  of  the  former  his  carriages, 
in  which  they  drove  to  the  promenade, 
the  ball,  the  theatre  —  everywhere  in  his 
name.  At  this  Parisian  home  he  gave 
great  dinners  to  his  constant  but  bewil- 
dered friends.  He  seemed  happy  in  thus 
braving  his  creditors  and  judges,  we  are 
told,  allowed  his  beard  to  grow,  dressed 

167 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

a  la  mode,  and  was  cheerful  to  the  last  day 
of  his  confinement. 

His  wife  died  in  1825,  and  five  years 
later  the  Kevolution  of  July  threw  open  his 
doors  in  the  very  last  hour  of  his  twenty- 
second  year  of  captivity.  His  one  desire 
upon  being  released  was  to  embrace  his 
friend  Lafayette,  and  this  he  did  on  the 
steps  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  Then  he  re- 
turned, July  31,  to  reinstate  himself 
in  prison  —  for  St.  Pelagie  had  after 
twenty-two  years  come  to  stand  to  him  for 
home.  He  was  seized  almost  immediately 
upon  his  second  entrance  into  confinement 
with  a  hemorrhage,  and  died  suddenly  in 
the  Kue  d'Echiquier,  aged  seventy-six.  In 
his  will,  he  donated  large  sums  of  money 
to  his  four  children,  and  to  the  city  of 
Boston  to  found  an  institution  to  be  called 
the  Swan  Orphan  Academy.  But  the 
estate  was  found  to  be  hopelessly  insolvent, 
168 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

and  the  public  legacy  was  never  paid. 
The  colonel's  name  lives,  however,  in  the 
Maine  island  he  purchased  in  1786,  for  the 
purpose  of  improving  and  settling,  —  a 
project  which,  but  for  one  of  his  periodic 
failures,  he  would  probably  have  success- 
fully accomplished. 


169 


THE  WOMAN  VETERAN  OF  THE 
CONTINENTAL    ARMY 


SAMPSON  GAN- 
NETT,  of  Sharon,  has  the  unique 
distinction  of  presenting  the  only 
authenticated  case  of  a  woman's  enlist- 
ment and  service  as  a  regular  soldier  in 
the  Revolutionary  army. 

The  proof  of  her  claim's  validity  can  be 
found  in  the  resolutions  of  the  General 
Court  of  Massachusetts,  where,  under  date 
of  January  20,  1792,  those  who  take  the 
trouble  may  find  this  entry  :  "  On  the 
petition  of  Deborah  Gannett,  praying  com- 
pensation for  services  performed  in  the 
late  army  of  the  United  States. 
170 


DEBORAH    SAMPSON    GANNETT 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

"  Whereas,  it  appears  to  this  court  that 
Deborah  Gannett  enlisted  under  the  name 
of  Eobert  Shurtleff,  in  Captain  Webb's 
company  in  the  Fourth  Massachusetts 
regiment,  on  May  21,  1782,  and  did  actu- 
ally perform  the  duties  of  a  soldier  in  the 
late  army  of  the  United  States  to  the 
twenty-third  day  of  October,  1783,  for 
which  she  has  received  no  compensation; 

"  And,  whereas,  it  further  appears  that 
the  said  Deborah  exhibited  an  extraor- 
dinary instance  of  female  heroism  by  dis- 
charging the  duties  of  a  faithful,  gallant 
soldier,  and  at  the  same  time  preserved 
the  virtue  and  chastity  of  her  sex  unsus- 
pected and  unblemished,  and  was  dis- 
charged from  the  service  with  a  fair  and 
honourable  character;  therefore, 

"  Resolved,  that  the  treasurer  of  the 
Commonwealth  be,  and  hereby  is,  directed 
to  issue  his  note  to  said  Deborah  for  the 

171 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

sum  of  £34,  bearing  interest  from  October 
23,  1783." 

Thus  was  the  seal  of  authenticity  set 
upon  as  extraordinary  a  story  as  can  be 
found  in  the  annals  of  this  country. 

Deborah  Sampson  was  born  in  Plymp- 
ton,  Plymouth  County,  December  17, 
1760,  of  a  family  descended  from  Governor 
Bradford.  She  had  many  brothers  who 
enlisted  for  service  early  in  the  war,  and  it 
was  their  example,  according  to  some  ac- 
counts, which  inspired  her  unusual  course. 

If  one  may  judge  from  the  hints  thrown 
out  in  the  "  Eemale  Review,"  a  quaint 
little  pamphlet  probably  written  by  Debo- 
rah herself,  and  published  in  1797,  how- 
ever, it  was  the  ardent  wooing  of  a  too 
importunate  lover  which  drove  the  girl 
to  her  extraordinary  undertaking.  Two 
copies  of  this  "  Review  "  are  now  treas- 
ured in  the  Boston  Public  Library. 
172 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

In  the  first  chapters,  the  author  dis- 
courses upon  female  education  and  the 
like,  and  then,  after  a  sympathetic  analysis 
of  the  educational  aspirations  of  the 
heroine  (referred  to  throughout  the  book 
as  "our  illustrious  fair"),  and  a  perora- 
tion on  the  lady's  religious  beliefs,  de- 
scribes in  Miss  Sampson's  own  words  a 
curious  dream  she  once  had. 

The  young  woman  experienced  this 
psychic  visitation,  the  author  of  the  "  Re- 
view "  would  have  us  believe,  a  short  time 
before  taking  her  final  step  toward  the 
army.  In  the  dream,  a  serpent  bade  her 
"  arise,  stand  on  your  feet,  gird  yourself, 
and  prepare  to  encounter  your  enemy." 
This,  according  to  the  chronicler's  inter- 
pretation, was  one  underlying  cause  of 
Deborah's  subsequent  decision  to  enlist  as 
a  soldier. 

Yet  her  mother's  wish  that  she  should 

173 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

marry  a  man  for  whom  she  felt  no  love 
is  also  suggested  as  a  cause,  and  there  is 
a  hint,  too,  that  the  death  in  the  battle 
of  Long  Island,  New  York,  of  a  man  to 
whom  she  was  attached,  gave  the  final  im- 
pulse to  her  plan.  At  any  rate,  it  was  the 
night  that  she  heard  the  news  of  this  man's 
death  that  she  started  on  her  perilous 
undertaking. 

"  Having  put  in  readiness  the  materials 
she  had  judged  requisite,"  writes  her  chron- 
icler, "  she  retired  at  her  usual  hour  to  bed, 
intending  to  rise  at  twelve.  .  .  .  There 
was  none  but  the  Invisible  who  could  take 
cognisance  of  her  passion  on  assuming  her 
new  garb." 

She  slipped  cautiously  away,  and  trav- 
elled carefully  to  Bellingham,  where  she 
enlisted  as  a  Continental  soldier  on  a  three 
years'  term.  She  was  mustered  into  the 
army  at  Worcester,  under  the  name  of 
174 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTEEES 

Kobert  Shurtleff.  With  about  fifty  other 
soldiers  she  soon  arrived  at  West  Point, 
and  it  there  fell  to  her  lot  to  be  in  Captain 
Webb's  company,  in  Colonel  Shepard's 
regiment,  and  in  General  Patterson's 
brigade. 

Naturally  the  girl's  disappearance  from 
home  had  caused  her  friends  and  her  fam- 
ily great  uneasiness.  Her  mother  re- 
proached herself  for  having  urged  too 
constantly  upon  the  attention  of  her  child 
the  suit  of  a  man  for  whom  she  did  not 
care,  and  her  lover  upbraided  himself  for 
having  been  too  importunate  in  his  wooing. 
The  telephone  and  telegraph  not  having 
been  invented,  it  was  necessary,  in  order 
to  trace  the  lost  girl,  to  visit  all  the  places 
to  which  Deborah  might  have  flown.  Her 
brother,  therefore,  made  an  expedition  one 
hundred  miles  to  the  eastward  among 
some  of  the  family  relations,  and  her 

175 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  RQQFTEEES 

suitor  took  his  route  to  the  west  of  Mas- 
sachusetts and  across  into  New  York 
State. 

In  the  course  of  his  search  he  visited, 
as  it  happened,  the  very  place  in  which 
Deborah's  company  was  stationed,  and 
saw  (though  he  did  not  recognise)  his  lost 
sweetheart.  She  recognised  him,  however, 
and  hearing  his  account  to  the  officers  of 
her  mother's  grief  and  anxiety,  sent  home 
as  soon  as  opportunity  offered,  the  follow- 
ing letter : 

"  DEAR  PARENT  :  —  On  the  margin  of 
one  of  those  rivers  which  intersects  and 
winds  itself  so  beautifully  majestic  through 
a  vast  extent  of  territory  of  the  United 
States  is  the  present  situation  of  your  un- 
worthy but  constant  and  affectionate 
daughter.  I  pretend  not  to  justify  or  even 
to  palliate  my  clandestine  elopement.  In 
176 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOETREES 

hopes  of  pacifying  your  mind,  which  I 
am  sure  must  be  afflicted  beyond  measure, 
I  write  you  this  scrawl.  Conscious  of  not 
having  thus  abruptly  absconded  by  reason 
of  any  fancied  ill  treatment  from  you,  or 
disaffection  toward  any,  the  thoughts  of 
my  disobedience  are  truly  poignant. 
Neither  have  I  a  plea  that  the  insults  of 
man  have  driven  me  hence:  and  let  this 
be  your  consoling  reflection  —  that  I  have 
not  fled  to  offer  more  daring  insults  to 
them  by  a  proffered  prostitution  of  that 
virtue  which  I  have  always  been  taught 
to  preserve  and  revere.  The  motive  is 
truly  important;  and  when  I  divulge  it 
my  sole  ambition  and  delight  shall  be  to 
make  an  expiatory  sacrifice  for  my  trans- 
gression. 

"  I  am  in  a  large  but  well  regulated 
family.  My  employment  is  agreeable, 
although  it  is  somewhat  different  and  more 

177 


OLD  KEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

intense  than  it  was  at  home.  But  I  appre- 
hend it  is  equally  as  advantageous.  My 
superintendents  are  indulgent;  but  to  a 
punctilio  they  demand  a  due  observance  of 
decorum  and  propriety  of  conduct.  By 
this  you  must  know  I  have  become  mistress 
of  many  useful  lessons,  though  I  have 
many  more  to  learn.  Be  not  too  much 
troubled,  therefore,  about  my  present  or 
future  engagements;  as  I  will  endeavour 
to  make  that  prudence  and  virtue  my 
model,  for  which,  I  own,  I  am  much  in- 
debted to  those  who  took  the  charge  of  my 
youth. 

"  My  place  of  residence  and  the  adjoin- 
ing country  are  beyond  description  de- 
lightsome. .  .  .  Indeed,  were  it  not  for 
the  ravages  of  war,  of  which  I  have  seen 
more  here  than  in  Massachusetts,  this  part 
of  our  great  continent  would  become  a 
paradisiacal  elysium.  Heaven  condescend 
178 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

that  a  speedy  peace  may  constitute  us  a 
happy  and  independent  nation:  when  the 
husband  shall  again  be  restored  to  his 
amiable  consort,  to  wipe  her  sorrowing 
tear,  the  son  to  the  embraces  of  his  mourn- 
ing parents,  and  the  lover  to  the  tender, 
disconsolate,  and  half -distracted  object  of 
his  love. 

"  Your  affectionate 

"  DAUGHTEB." 

Unfortunately  this  letter,  which  had  to 
be  entrusted  to  a  stranger,  was  intercepted. 
But  Deborah  did  not  know  this,  and  her 
mind  at  rest,  she  pursued  cheerfully  the 
course  she  had  marked  out  for  herself. 

The  fatigue  and  heat  of  the  march  op- 
pressed the  girl  soldier  more  than  did  bat- 
tle or  the  fear  of  death.  Yet  at  White 
Plains,  her  first  experience  of  actual  war- 
fare, her  left-hand  man  was  shot  dead  in 

179 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROQFTEEES 

the  second  fire,  and  she  herself  received 
two  shots  through  her  coat  and  one  through 
her  cap.  In  the  terrible  bayonet  charge 
at  this  same  battle,  in  which  she  was  a  par- 
ticipant, the  sight  of  the  bloodshed  proved 
almost  too  much  for  her  strength. 

At  Yorktown  she  was  ordered  to  work 
on  a  battery,  which  she  did  right  faith- 
fully. Among  her  comrades,  Deborah's 
young  and  jaunty  appearance  won  for  her 
the  sobriquet  "  blooming  boy."  She  was 
a  great  favourite  in  the  ranks.  She  shirked 
nothing,  and  did  duty  sometimes  as  a 
common  soldier  and  sometimes  as  a  ser- 
geant on  the  lines,  patrolling,  collecting 
fuel,  and  performing  such  other  offices  as 
fell  to  her  lot. 

After  the  battle  of  White  Plains  she 

received  two  severe  wounds,  one  of  which 

was  in  her  thigh.     Naturally,  a  surgeon 

was  sent  for  at  once,  but  the  plucky  girl, 

180 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

who  could  far  more  easily  endure  pain 
than  the  thought  of  discovery,  extracted 
the  ball  herself  with  penknife  and  needle 
before  hospital  aid  arrived. 

In  the  spring  of  1783  General  Patterson 
selected  her  for  his  waiter,  and  Deborah 
so  distinguished  herself  for  readiness  and 
courage  that  the  general  often  praised  to 
the  other  men  of  the  regiment  the  heroism 
of  his  "  smock-faced  boy." 

It  is  at  this  stage  of  the  story  that  the 
inevitable  denouement  occurred.  The 
young  soldier  fell  ill  with  a  prevailing 
epidemic,  and  during  her  attack  of  un- 
consciousness her  sex  was  discovered  by  the 
attendant  physician,  Doctor  Bana.  Imme- 
diately she  was  removed  by  the  physician's 
orders  to  the  apartment  of  the  hospital 
matron,  under  whose  care  she  remained 
until  discharged  as  well. 

Deborah's  appearance  in  her  uniform 

181 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

was  sufficiently  suggestive,  as  has  been 
said,  of  robust  masculinity  to  attract  the 
favourable  attention  of  many  young 
women.  What  she  had  not  counted  upon 
was  the  arousing  in  one  of  these  girls  of 
a  degree  of  interest  which  should  imperil 
her  secret.  Her  chagrin,  the  third  morn- 
ing after  the  doctor's  discovery,  was  appre- 
ciably deepened,  therefore,  by  the  arrival 
of  a  love-letter  from  a  rich  and  charming 
young  woman  of  Baltimore  whom  the  sol- 
dier, "  Robert  Shurtleff,"  had  several 
times  met,  but  whose  identity  with  the 
writer  of  the  letter  our  heroine  by  no 
means  suspected.  This  letter,  accompanied 
by  a  gift  of  fruit,  the  compiler  of  the 
"  Female  Review  "  gives  as  follows : 

"  DEAR  SIR  :  —  Fraught  with  the  feel- 
ings of  a  friend  who  is  doubtless  beyond 
your  conception  interested  in  your  health 

182 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

and  happiness,  I  take  liberty  to  address  you 
with  a  frankness  which  nothing  but  the 
purest  friendship  and  affection  can  pal- 
liate, —  know,  then,  that  the  charms  I  first 
read  on  your  visage  brought  a  passion 
into  my  bosom  for  which  I  could  not  ac- 
count. If  it  was  from  the  thing  called 
LOVE,  I  was  before  mostly  ignorant  of  it, 
and  strove  to  stifle  the  fugutive;  though 
I  confess  the  indulgence  was  agreeable. 
But  repeated  interviews  with  you  kindled 
it  into  a  flame  I  do  not  now  blush  to  own : 
and  should  it  meet  a  generous  return,  I 
shall  not  reproach  myself  for  its  in- 
dulgence. I  have  long  sought  to  hear 
of  your  department,  and  how  painful 
is  the  news  I  this  moment  received  that 
you  are  sick,  if  alive,  in  the  hospital! 
Your  complicated  nerves  will  not  admit 
of  writing,  but  inform  the  bearer  if  you 
are  necessitated  for  anything  that  can  con- 

183 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROQFTKEES 

duce  to  your  comfort.  If  you  recover  and 
think  proper  to  inquire  my  name,  I  will 
give  you  an  opportunity.  But  if  death 
is  to  terminate  your  existence  there,  let 
your  last  senses  be  impressed  with  the  re- 
flection that  you  die  not  without  one  more 
friend  whose  tears  will  bedew  your  funeral 
obsequies.  Adieu." 

The  distressed  invalid  replied  to  this 
note  that  "  he  "  was  not  in  need  of  money. 
The  same  evening,  however,  another  mis- 
sive was  received,  enclosing  two  guineas. 
And  the  like  favours  Avere  continued 
throughout  the  soldier's  stay  at  the  hos- 
pital. 

Upon  recovery,  the  "  blooming  boy  "  re- 
sumed his  uniform  to  rejoin  the  troops. 
Doctor  Bana  had  kept  the  secret,  and  there 
seemed  to  Deborah  no  reason  why  she 

184 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

should  not  pursue  her  soldier  career  to  the 
end. 

The  enamoured  maid  of  Baltimore  still 
remained,  however,  a  thorn  in  her  con- 
science. And  one  day,  when  near  Baltimore 
on  a  special  duty,  our  soldier  was  sum- 
moned by  a  note  to  the  home  of  this  young 
woman,  who,  confessing  herself  the  writer 
of  the  anonymous  letter,  declared  her  love. 
Just  what  response  was  made  to  this 
avowal  is  not  known,  but  that  the  attract- 
ive person  in  soldier  uniform  did  not  at 
this  time  tell  the  maid  of  Baltimore  the 
whole  truth  is  certain. 

Events  were  soon,  however,  to  force 
Deborah  to  perfect  frankness  with  her  ad- 
mirer. After  leaving  Baltimore,  she  went 
on  a  special  duty  journey,  in  the  course  of 
which  she  was  taken  captive  by  In- 
dians. The  savage  who  had  her  in  his 

185 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

charge  she  was  obliged  to  kill  in  self-de- 
fence, after  which  there  seemed  every 
prospect  that  she  and  the  single  Indian 
lad  who  escaped  with  her  would  perish  in 
the  wilderness,  a  prey  to  wild  beasts. 
Thereupon  she  wrote  to  her  Baltimore 
admirer  thus : 

"  DEAR  Miss :  —  Perhaps  you  are 

the  nearest  friend  I  have.  But  a  few  hours 
must  inevitably  waft  me  to  an  infinite  dis- 
tance from  all  sublunary  enjoyments,  and 
fix  me  in  a  state  of  changeless  retribu- 
tion. Three  years  having  made  me  the 
sport  of  fortune,  I  am  at  length  doomed 
to  end  my  existence  in  a  dreary  wilder- 
ness, unattended  except  by  an  Indian  boy. 
If  you  receive  these  lines,  remember  they 
come  from  one  who  sincerely  loves  you. 
But,  my  amiable  friend,  forgive  my  imper- 

186 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOETEEES 

fections  and  forget  you  ever  had  affection 
for  one  so  unworthy  the  name  of 

"  YOUR  OWN  SEX." 

No  means  of  sending  this  letter  pre- 
sented itself,  however,  and  after  a  dreary 
wandering,  Deborah  was  enabled  to  rejoin 
her  soldier  friends.  Then  she  proceeded 
to  Baltimore  for  the  express  purpose  of 
seeing  her  girl  admirer  and  telling  her  the 
truth.  Yet  this  time,  too,  she  evaded  her 
duty,  and  left  the  maiden  still  unenlight- 
ened, with  a  promise  to  return  the  ensuing 
spring  —  a  promise,  she  afterward  de- 
clared, she  had  every  intention  of  keeping, 
had  not  the  truth  been  published  to  the 
world  in  the  intervening  time. 

Doctor  Bana  had  been  only  deferring 
the  uncloaking  of  "  Kobert  Shurtleff." 
Upon  Deborah's  return  to  duty,  he  made 
the  culprit  herself  the  bearer  of  a  letter  to 

1ST 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

General    Patterson,    which    disclosed    the 
secret. 

The  general,  who  was  at  West  Point  at 
the  time,  treated  her  with  all  possible  kind- 
ness, and  commended  her  for  her  service, 
instead  of  punishing  her,  as  she  had  feared. 
Then  he  gave  her  a  private  apartment,  and 
made  arrangements  to  have  her  safely  con- 
ducted to  Massachusetts. 

Not  quite  yet,  however,  did  Deborah 
abandon  her  disguise.  She  passed  the  next 
winter  with  distant  relatives  under  the 
name  of  her  youngest  brother.  But  she 
soon  resumed  her  proper  name,  and  re- 
turned to  her  delighted  family. 

After  the  war,  she  married  Benjamin 
Gannett,  and  the  homestead  in  Sharon, 
where  she  lived  for  the  rest  of  her  life, 
is  still  standing,  relics  of  her  occupancy, 
her  table  and  her  Bible,  being  shown  there 
to-day  to  interested  visitors. 
188 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

In  1802  she  made  a  successful  lecturing 
tour,  during  which  she  kept  a  very  inter- 
esting diary,  which  is  still  exhibited  to 
those  interested  by  her  great-granddaugh- 
ter, Mrs.  Susan  Moody.  Her  grave  in 
Sharon  is  carefully  preserved,  a  street  has 
been  named  in  her  honour,  and  several 
patriotic  societies  have  constituted  her 
their  principal  deity.  Certainly  her  story 
is  curious  enough  to  entitle  her  to  some 
distinction. 


189 


THE   EEDEEMED    CAPTIVE 

all  the  towns  settled  by  English- 
men  in  the  midst  of  Indians,  none 
was  more  thoroughly  peaceful  in  its 
aims  and  origin  than  Deerfield,  in  the  old 
Pocumtuck  Valley.  Here  under  the  giant 
trees  of  the  primeval  forest  the  white- 
haired  Eliot  prayed,  and  beside  the  banks 
of  the  sluggish  stream  he  gathered  as 
nucleus  for  the  town  the  roving  savages 
upon  whom  his  gospel  message  had  made 
a  deep  impression.  Quite  naturally,  there- 
fore, the  men  of  Pocumtuck  were  not  dis- 
quieted by  news  of  Indian  troubles.  With 
the  natives  about  them  they  had  lived  on 
peaceful  terms  for  many  years,  and  it  was 
190 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

almost  impossible  for  them  to  believe  that 
they  would  ever  come  to  shudder  at  the 
mere  presence  of  redskins.  Yet  history 
tells  us,  and  Deerfield  to-day  bears  witness 
to  the  fact,  that  no  town  in  all  the  colonies 
suffered  more  at  the  hands  of  the  Indians 
than  did  this  peaceful  village  in  Western 
Massachusetts. 

In  1702  King  William  died,  and  "good" 
Queen  Anne  reigned  in  his  stead.  Follow- 
ing closely  upon  the  latter  event  came  an- 
other war  between  France  and  England,  a 
conflict  which,  as  in  the  reign  of  William 
and  Mary,  renewed  the  hostilities  between 
the  French  and  English  colonies  in  Amer- 
ica. At  an  early  date,  accordingly,  the  set- 
tlement of  Deerfield  discovered  that  it  was 
to  be  attacked  by  the  French.  At  once 
measures  were  taken  to  strengthen  the 
fortifications  of  the  town,  and  to  prepare, 
so  far  as  possible,  for  the  dreaded  event. 

191 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOETKEES 

The  blow  fell  on  the  night  of  the  twenty- 
ninth  of  February,  1704,  when  Major  Her- 
tel  de  Rouville,  with  upwards  of  three 
hundred  and  forty  French  and  Indians, 
arrived  at  a  pine  bluff  overlooking  Deer- 
field  meadow,  about  two  miles  north  of 
the  village  —  a  locality  now  known  as 
Petty's  Plain.  Here  he  halted,  to  await 
the  appropriate  hour  for  an  attack,  and 
it  was  not  until  early  morning  that,  leav- 
ing their  packs  upon  the  spot,  his  men 
started  forward  for  their  terrible  work  of 
destruction.  Rouville  took  great  pains  not 
to  alarm  the  sentinels  in  his  approach,  but 
the  precaution  was  unnecessary,  as  the 
watch  were  unfaithful,  and  had  retired  to 
rest.  Arriving  at  the  fortifications,  he 
found  the  snow  drifted  nearly  to  the  top 
of  the  palisades,  and  his  entire  party  en- 
tered the  place  undiscovered,  while  the 
whole  population  were  in  profound  sleep. 
192 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

Quietly  distributing  themselves  in  parties, 
they  broke  in  the  doors  of  the  houses, 
dragged  out  the  astonished  inhabitants, 
killed  such  as  resisted,  and  took  prisoner 
the  majority  of  the  remainder,  only  a  few 
escaping  from  their  hands  into  the  woods. 
The  house  of  Reverend  John  Williams 
was  assaulted  at  the  beginning  of  the 
attack.  Awakened  from  sleep,  Mr.  Will- 
iams leaped  from  his  bed,  and  running  to 
the  door  found  the  enemy  entering.  Call- 
ing to  two  soldiers  who  lodged  in  the  house, 
he  sprang  back  to  his  bedroom,  seized  a 
pistol,  cocked  it,  and  presented  it  at  the 
breast  of  an  Indian  who  had  followed  him. 
It  missed  fire,  and  it  was  well,  for  the 
room  was  thronged  in  an  instant,  and  he 
was  seized,  bound  without  being  allowed  the 
privilege  of  dressing,  and  kept  standing  in 
the  cold  for  an  hour.  Meanwhile,  the  sav- 
ages amused  themselves  by  taunting  him, 

193 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

swinging  their  hatchets  over  him  and 
threatening  him.  Two  of  his  children  and 
a  negro  woman  were  then  taken  to  the  door 
and  butchered.  Mrs.  Williams  was  al- 
lowed to  dress,  and  she  and  her  five 
children  were  taken  captives.  Other 
houses  in  the  village  were  likewise  at- 
tacked, one  of  them  being  defended  by 
seven  men,  for  whom  the  women  inside 
cast  bullets  while  the  fight  was  in  progress. 
But  the  attacking  force  was  an  over- 
powering one,  and  De  Rouville  and  his 
men  had  by  sunrise  done  their  work  most 
successfully  with  torch  and  tomahawk. 
The  blood  of  forty-nine  murdered  men, 
women  and  children  reddened  the  snow. 
Twenty-nine  men,  twenty-four  women,  and 
fifty-eight  children  were  made  captive,  and 
in  a  few  hours  the  spoil-encumbered  enemy 
were  en  route  for  Canada. 

Through  the  midwinter  snow  which  cov- 
194 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

ered  the  fields  the  poor  captives  marched 
out  on  their  terrible  pilgrimage.  Two  of 
the  prisoners  succeeded  in  escaping,  where- 
upon Mr.  Williams  was  ordered  to  inform 
the  others  that  if  any  more  slipped  away 
death  by  fire  would  be  visited  upon  those 
who  remained.  The  first  night's  lodgings 
were  provided  for  as  comfortably  as  cir- 
cumstances would  permit,  and  all  the  able- 
bodied  among  the  prisoners  were  made  to 
sleep  in  barns.  On  the  second  day's  march 
Mr.  Williams  was  permitted  to  speak  with 
his  poor  wife,  whose  youngest  child  had 
been  born  only  a  few  weeks  before,  and  to 
assist  her  on  her  journey. 

"  On  the  way,"  says  the  pastor,  in  his 
famous  book,  "  The  Redeemed  Captive," 
"  we  discoursed  on  the  happiness  of  those 
who  had  a  right  to  an  house  not  made  with 
hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens;  and  God 
for  a  father  and  friend ;  as  also  it  was  our 

195 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOETREES 

reasonable  duty  quietly  to  submit  to  the 
will  of  God,  and  to  say,  '  The  will  of  the 
Lord  be  done.'  r  Thus  imparting  to  one 
another  their  heroic  courage  and  Christian 
strength  and  consolation,  the  captive  cou- 
ple pursued  their  painful  way. 

At  last  the  poor  woman  announced  the 
gradual  failure  of  her  strength,  and  during 
the  short  time  she  was  allowed  to  remain 
with  her  husband,  expressed  good  wishes 
and  prayers  for  him  and  her  children. 
The  narrative  proceeds :  "  She  never  spake 
any  discontented  word  as  to  what  had  be- 
fallen her,  but  with  suitable  expressions 
justified  God  in  what  had  happened.  .  .  . 
We  soon  made  a  halt,  in  which  time  my 
chief  surviving  master  came  up,  upon  which 
I  was  put  into  marching  with  the  foremost, 
and  so  made  my  last  farewell  of  my  dear 
wife,  the  desire  of  my  eyes,  and  companion 
in  many  mercies  and  afflictions.  Upon  our 
196 


OLD  JSTEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

separation  from  each  other,  we  asked  for 
each  other  grace  sufficient  for  what  God 
should  call  us  to." 

For  a  short  time  Mrs.  Williams  re- 
mained where  her  husband  had  left  her, 
occupying  her  leisure  in  reading  her  Bible. 
He,  as  was  necessary,  went  on,  and  soon 
had  to  ford  a  small  and  rapid  stream,  and 
climb  a  high  mountain  on  its  other  side. 
Reaching  the  top  very  much  exhausted, 
he  was  unburdened  of  his  pack.  Then  his 
heart  went  down  the  steep  after  his  wife. 
He  entreated  his  master  to  let  him  go 
down  and  help  her,  but  his  desire  was  re- 
fused. As  the  prisoners  one  after  another 
came  up  he  inquired  for  her,  and  at  length 
the  news  of  her  death  was  told  to  him. 
In  wading  the  river  she  had  been  thrown 
down  by  the  water  and  entirely  submerged. 
Yet  after  great  difficulty  she  had  succeeded 
in  reaching  the  bank,  and  had  penetrated 

197 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

to  the  foot  of  the  mountain.  Here,  how- 
ever, her  master  had  become  discouraged 
with  the  idea  of  her  maintaining  the 
march,  and  burying  his  tomahawk  in  her 
head  he  left  her  dead.  Mrs.  Williams  was 
the  daughter  of  Reverend  Eleazer  Mather, 
the  first  minister  of  Northampton  —  an 
educated,  refined,  and  noble  woman.  It  is 
pleasant,  while  musing  upon  her  sad  fate, 
to  recall  that  her  body  was  found  and 
brought  back  to  Deerfield,  where,  long 
years  after,  her  husband  was  laid  by  her 
side.  And  there  to-day  sleeps  the  dust  of 
the  pair  beneath  stones  which  inform  the 
stranger  of  the  interesting  spot. 

Others  of  the  captives  were  killed  upon 
the  journey  as  convenience  required.  A 
journal  kept  by  Stephen  Williams,  the 
pastor's  son,  who  was  only  eleven  years 
old  when  captured,  reflects  in  an  artless 
way  every  stage  of  the  terrible  journey: 
198 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

"  They  travelled/'  he  writes,  "  as  if  they 
meant  to  kill  us  all,  for  they  travelled 
thirty-five  or  forty  miles  a  day.  .  .  . 
Their  manner  was,  if  any  loitered,  to  kill 
them.  My  feet  were  very  sore,  so  I  thought 
they  would  kill  me  also." 

When  the  first  Sabbath  arrived,  Mr. 
Williams  was  allowed  to  preach.  His  text 
was  taken  from  the  Lamentations  of  Jere- 
miah, the  verse  in  which  occurs  the  passage, 
"  My  virgins  and  my  young  men  have  gone 
into  captivity." 

Thus  they  progressed,  the  life  of  the 
captives  dependent  in  every  case  upon 
their  ability  to  keep  up  with  the  party. 
Here  an  innocent  child  would  be  knocked 
upon  the  head  and  left  in  the  snow,  and 
there  some  poor  woman  dropped  by  the 
way  and  killed  by  the  tomahawk.  Arriv- 
ing at  White  River,  De  Rouville  divided 
his  forces,  and  the  parties  took  separate 

199 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

routes  to  Canada.  The  group  to  which 
Mr.  Williams  was  attached  went  up  White 
River,  and  proceeded,  with  various  adven- 
tures, to  Sorel  in  Canada,  to  which  place 
some  of  the  captives  had  preceded  him. 
In  Canada,  all  who  arrived  were  treated 
by  the  French  with  great  humanity,  and 
Mr.  Williams  with  marked  courtesy.  He 
proceeded  to  Chambly,  thence  to  St. 
Francis  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  afterward  to 
Quebec,  and  at  last  to  Montreal,  where 
Governor  Vaudreuil  accorded  him  much 
kindness,  and  eventually  redeemed  him 
from  savage  hands. 

Mr.  Williams's  religious  experiences  in 
Canada  were  characteristic  of  the  times. 
He  was  there  thrown  among  Romanists,  a 
sect  against  which  he  entertained  the  most 
profound  dislike  —  profound  to  the  degree 
of  inflammatory  conscientiousness,  not  to 
say  bigotry.  His  Indian  master  was  deter- 
200 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOETKEES 

mined  he  should  go  to  church,  but  he  would 
not,  and  was  once  dragged  there,  where,  he 
says,  he  "  saw  a  great  confusion  instead 
of  any  Gospel  order."  The  Jesuits  as- 
sailed him  on  every  hand,  and  gave  him 
but  little  peace.  His  master  at  one  time 
tried  to  make  him  kiss  a  crucifix,  under 
the  threat  that  he  would  dash  out  his 
brains  with  a  hatchet  if  he  should  refuse. 
But  he  did  refuse,  and  had  the  good  for- 
tune to  save  his  head  as  well  as  his  con- 
science. Mr.  Williams's  own  account  of 
his  stay  in  Canada  is  chiefly  devoted  to 
anecdotes  of  the  temptations  to  Romanism 
with  which  he  was  beset  by  the  Jesuits. 
His  son  Samuel  was  almost  persuaded  to 
embrace  the  faith  of  Rome,  and  his  daugh- 
ter Eunice  was,  to  his  great  chagrin,  forced 
to  say  prayers  in  Latin.  But,  for  the  most, 
the  Deerfield  captives  proved  intractable, 
and  were  still  aggressively  Protestant 

201 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

when,  in  1706,  Mr.  Williams  and  all  his 
children  (except  Eunice,  of  whom  we  shall 
say  more  anon),  together  with  the  other 
captives  up  to  the  number  of  fifty-seven, 
embarked  on  board  a  ship  sent  to  Quebec 
by  Governor  Dudley,  and  sailed  for  Bos- 
ton. 

A  committee  of  the  pastor's  people  met 
their  old  clergyman  upon  his  landing  at 
Boston,  and  invited  him  to  return  to  the 
charge  from  which  he  had,  nearly  three 
years  before,  been  torn.  And  Mr.  Will- 
iams had  the  courage  to  accept  their  offer, 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  war  con- 
tinued with  unabated  bitterness.  In  1707 
the  town  voted  to  build  him  a  house  "  as 
big  as  Ensign  Sheldon's,  and  a  back  room 
as  big  as  may  be  thought  convenient." 
This  house  is  still  standing  (1902),  though 
Ensign  Sheldon's,  the  "  Old  Indian  House 
in  Deerfield,"  as  it  has  been  popularly 
202 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

called,  was  destroyed  more  than  half  a 
century  ago.  The  Indian  House  stood  at 
the  northern  end  of  Deerfield  Common, 
and  exhibited  to  its  latest  day  the  marks 
of  the  tomahawk  left  upon  its  front  door 
in  the  attack  of  1704,  and  the  perforations 
made  by  the  balls  inside.  The  door  is  still 
preserved,  and  is  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing relics  now  to  be  seen  in  Memorial  Hall, 
Deerfield. 

For  more  than  twenty  years  after  his 
return  from  captivity,  Mr.  Williams 
served  his  parish  faithfully.  He  took  into 
his  new  house  a  new  wife,  by  whom  he 
had  several  children;  and  in  this  same 
house  he  passed  peacefully  away  June  12, 
1729,  in  the  sixty-fifth  year  of  his  age, 
and  the  forty-fifth  of  his  ministry. 

Stephen  Williams,  who  had  been  taken 
captive  when  a  lad  of  eleven,  was  redeemed 
in  1705  with  his  father.  In  spite  of  the 

203 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

hardships  to  which  he  had  been  so  early  ex- 
posed, he  was  a  fine  strong  boy  when  he 
returned  to  Deerfield,  and  he  went  on  with 
his  rudely  interrupted  education  to  such 
good  effect  that  he  graduated  from  Har- 
vard in  1713  at  the  age  of  twenty.  In  1716 
he  settled  as  minister  at  Longmeadow, 
in  which  place  he  died  in  1872.  Yet 
his  manhood  was  not  passed  without  share 
in  the  wars  of  the  time,  for  he  was  chap- 
lain in  the  Louisburg  expedition  in  1745, 
and  in  the  regiment  of  Colonel  Ephraim 
Williams  in  his  fatal  campaign  in  1755, 
and  again  in  the  Canadian  campaign  of 
1756.  The  portrait  of  him  which  is  here 
given  was  painted  about  1748,  and  is  now 
to  be  seen  in  the  hall  of  the  Pocumtuck 
Valley  Memorial  Association,  within  four- 
score rods  of  the  place  where  the  boy  cap- 
tive was  born,  and  from  which  he  was 
carried  as  a  tender  child  into  captivity. 
204 


REVEREND    STEPHEN    WILLIAMS 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

It  has  been  said  that  one  of  the  greatest 
trials  of  Mr.  Williams's  stay  in  Canada 
was  the  discovery  that  his  little  daughter, 
Eunice,  had  been  taught  by  her  Canadian 
captors  to  say  prayers  in  Latin.  But  this 
was  only  the  beginning  of  the  sorrow  of 
the  good  man's  life.  Eunice  was  a  plastic 
little  creature,  and  she  soon  adopted  not 
only  the  religion,  but  also  the  manners  and 
customs  of  the  Indians  among  whom  she 
had  fallen.  In  fact  and  feeling  she  became 
a  daughter  of  the  Indians,  and  there  among 
them  she  married,  on  arriving  at  woman- 
hood, an  Indian  by  whom  she  had  a  family 
of  children.  A  few  years  after  the  war  she 
made  her  first  visit  to  her  Deerfield  rela- 
tives, and  subsequently  she  came  twice  to 
Massachusetts  dressed  in  Indian  costume. 
But  all  the  inducements  held  out  to  her  to 
remain  there  were  in  vain.  During  her 
last  visit  she  was  the  subject  of  many 

205 


/OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  RQOFTREES 

eight  years  between  the  dates  of  Williams's 
and  the  Dauphin's  birth,  and  nearly  every 
part  of  the  clergyman's  life  was  found  to 
have  been  spent  in  quite  a  commonplace 
way.  For  as  a  boy,  Eleazer  Williams 
lived  with  Reverend  Mr.  Ely,  on  the  Con- 
necticut River,  and  his  kinsman,  Doctor 
Williams,  of  Deerfield,  at  once  asserted 
that  he  remembered  him  very  well  at  all 
stages  of  his  boyhood. 

Governor  Charles  K.  Williams,  of  Ver- 
mont, writing  from  Rutland  under  date 
February  26,  1853,  said  of  the  Reverend 
Eleazer  and  his  "  claims  "  to  the  throne  of 
France,  "  I  never  had  any  doubt  that  Will- 
iams was  of  Indian  extraction,  and  a  de- 
scendant of  Eunice  Williams.  His  father 
and  mother  were  both  of  them  at  my 
father's  house,  although  I  cannot  ascertain 
definitely  the  year.  I  consider  the  whole 
story  a  humbug,  and  believe  that  it  will 
208 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

be  exploded  in  the  course  of  a  few  months." 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  story  has  been 
exploded,  —  though  the  features  of  the 
Reverend  Eleazer  Williams,  when  in  the 
full  flush  of  manhood,  certainly  bore  a 
remarkable  resemblance  to  those  of  the 
Erench  kings  from  whom  his  descent  was 
claimed.  His  mixed  blood  might  account 
for  this,  however.  Williams's  paternal 
grandfather  was  an  English  physician,  — 
not  of  the  Deerfield  family  at  all,  —  and 
his  grandmother  the  daughter  of  Eunice 
Williams  and  her  redskin  mate.  His 
father  was  Thomas  Williams,  captain  in 
the  British  service  during  the  American 
Revolution,  and  his  mother  a  French- 
woman. Thus  the  Reverend  Eleazer  was 
part  English,  part  Yankee,  part  Indian, 
and  part  Erench,  a  combination  sufficiently 
complex  to  account,  perhaps,  even  for  an 
unmistakably  Bourbon  chin. 

209 


NEW   ENGLAND'S   EIEST   "CLUB 
WOMAN  " 

M   WEN  today,  in  this  emancipated 
f*.   twentieth  century,  women  minis- 
ters and  "  female  preachers  "  are 
not  infrequently  held  up  to  derision  by 
those  who  delight  to  sit  in  the  seat  of  the 
scornful.     Trials  for  heresy  are  likewise 
still  common.      It  is  not   at   all  strange, 
therefore,  that  Mistress  Ann  Hutchinson 
should,  in  1636,  have  been  driven  out  of 
Boston  as  an  enemy  dangerous  to  public 
order,  her  specific  offence  being  that  she 
maintained  in  her  own  house  that  a  mere 
profession  of  faith  could  not  evidence  sal- 
210 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTEEES 

vation,  unless  the  Spirit  first  revealed  itself 
from  within. 

Mrs.  Hutchinson's  maiden  name  was 
Ann  Marbury,  and  she  was  the  daughter  of 
a  scholar  and  a  theologian  —  one  Francis 
Marbury  —  who  was  first  a  minister  of 
Lincolnshire  and  afterward  of  London. 
Naturally,  much  of  the  girl's  as  well  as 
the  greater  part  of  the  woman's  life  was 
passed  in  the  society  of  ministers  —  men 
whom  she  soon  learned  to  esteem  more  for 
what  they  knew  than  for  what  they 
preached.  Theology,  indeed,  was  the  at- 
mosphere in  which  she  lived  and  moved 
and  had  her  being.  Intellectually,  she  was 
an  enthusiast,  morally  an  agitator,  a  clever 
leader,  whom  Winthrop  very  aptly  de- 
scribed as  a  "  woman  of  ready  wit  and 
bold  spirit." 

While  still  young,  this  exceptionally 
gifted  woman  married  William  Hutchin- 

211 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

son,  a  country  gentleman  of  good  character 
and  estate,  whose  home  was  also  in  Lin- 
colnshire. Winthrop  has  nothing  but 
words  of  contempt  for  Mrs.  Hutchinson's 
husband,  but  there  is  little  doubt  that  a 
sincere  attachment  existed  between  the 
married  pair,  and  that  Hutchinson  was 
a  man  of  sterling  character  and  worth, 
even  though  he  was  intellectually  the  infe- 
rior of  his  remarkable  wife.  In  their  Lin- 
colnshire home  the  Hutchinsons  had  been 
parishioners  of  the  Reverend  John  Cotton, 
and  regular  attendants  at  that  celebrated 
divine7?  church  in  Boston,  England.  To 
him,  her  pastor,  Mrs.  Hutchinson  was 
deeply  attached.  And  when  the  minister 
fled  to  New  England  in  order  to  escape 
from  the  tyranny  of  the  bishops,  the  Hutch- 
insons also  decided  to  come  to  America, 
and  presently  the  whole  family  did  so. 
Mrs.  Hutchinson' s  daughter,  who  had  mar- 
212 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

ried  the  Reverend  John  Wright  Wheel- 
wright —  another  Lincolnshire  minister 
who  had  suffered  at  the  hands  of  Arch- 
bishop Laud  —  came  with  her  mother. 
Besides  the  daughter,  there  were  three 
grown  sons  in  the  family  at  the  time  Mrs. 
Hutchinson  landed  in  the  Boston  she  was 
afterward  to  rend  with  religious  dissension. 
So  it  was  no  young,  sentimental,  unbal- 
anced girl,  but  a  middle-aged,  matured, 
and  experienced  woman  of  the  world  who, 
in  the  autumn  of  1634,  took  sail  for  New 
England.  During  the  voyage  it  was  learned 
that  Mrs.  Hutchinson  came  primed  for 
religious  controversy.  With  some  Puritan 
ministers  who  were  on  the  same  vessel  she 
discussed  eagerly  abstruse  theological  ques- 
tions, and  she  hinted  in  no  uncertain  way 
that  when  they  should  arrive  in  New  Eng- 
land they  might  expect  to  hear  more  from 
her.  Clearly,  she  regarded  herself  as  one 

213 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

with  a  mission.  In  unmistakable  terms  she 
avowed  her  belief  that  direct  revelations 
are  made  to  the  elect,  and  asserted  that 
nothing  of  importance  had  ever  happened 
to  her  which  had  not  been  revealed  to  her 
beforehand. 

Upon  their  arrival  in  Boston,  the  Hutch- 
insons  settled  down  in  a  house  on  the  site 
of  the  present  Old  Corner  Book  Store,  the 
head  of  the  family  made  arrangements  to 
enter  upon  his  business  affairs,  and  in  due 
time  both  husband  and  wife  made  their 
application  to  be  received  as  members  of 
the  church.  This  step  was  indispensable 
to  admit  the  pair  into  Christian  fellowship 
and  to  allow  to  Mr.  Hutchinson  the  privi- 
leges of  a  citizen.  He  came  through  the 
questioning  more  easily  than  did  his  wife, 
for,  in  consequence  of  the  reports  already 
spread  concerning  her  extravagant  opin- 
ions, Mrs.  Hutchinson  was  subjected  to  a 
214 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

most  searching  examination.  Finally, 
however,  she,  too,  passed  through  the  or- 
deal safely,  the  examining  ministers,  one 
of  whom  was  her  old  and  beloved  pastor, 
Mr.  Cotton,  declaring  themselves  satisfied 
with  her  answers.  So,  in  November,  we 
find  her  a  "  member  in  good  standing  "  of 
the  Boston  church. 

From  this  time  forward  Mrs.  Hutchin- 
son  was  a  person  of  great  importance  in 
Boston.  Sir  Harry  Vane,  then  governor  of 
the  colony  and  the  idol  of  the  people,  was 
pleased,  with  Mr.  Cotton,  to  take  much 
notice  of  the  gifted  newcomer,  and  their 
example  was  followed  by  the  leading  and 
influential  people  of  the  town,  who  treated 
her  with  much  consideration  and  respect, 
and  were  quick  to  recognise  her  intellec- 
tuality as  far  superior  to  that  of  most  mem- 
bers of  her  sex.  Mrs.  Hutchinson  soon 
came,  indeed,  to  be  that  very  remarkable 

215 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

thing  —  a  prophet  honoured  in  her  own 
community.  Adopting  an  established  cus- 
tom of  the  town,  she  held  in  her  own  home 
two  weekly  meetings  —  one  for  men  and 
women  and  one  exclusively  for  women  — 
at  which  she  was  the  oracle.  And  all  these 
meetings  were  very  generously  attended. 

Mrs.  Hutchinson  seems  to  have  been 
New  England's  first  clubwoman.  Never 
before  had  women  come  together  for  inde- 
pendent thought  and  action.  To  be  sure, 
nothing  more  lively  than  the  sermon 
preached  the  Sunday  before  was  ever  dis- 
cussed at  these  gatherings,  but  the  talk  was 
always  pithy  and  bright,  the  leader's  wit 
was  always  ready,  and  soon  the  house  at  the 
corner  of  what  is  now  School  Street  came 
to  be  widely  celebrated  aS  the  centre  of 
an  influence  so  strong  and  far-reaching 
as  to  make  the  very  ministers  jealous  and 
fearful.  At  first,  to  be  sure,  the  parsons 
216 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

themselves  went  to  the  meetings.  Cotton, 
Vane,  Wheelwright,  and  Coddington,  com- 
pletely embraced  the  leader's  views,  and 
the  result  upon  Winthrop  of  attendance 
at  these  conferences  was  to  send  that  official 
home  to  his  closet,  wrestling  with  himself, 
yet  more  than  half  persuaded. 

Hawthorne's  genius  has  conjured  up  the 
scene  at  Boston's  first  "  parlour  talks,"  so 
that  we  too  may  attend  and  be  one  among 
the  u  crowd  of  hooded  women  and  men  in 
steeple  hats  and  close-cropped  hair  .  .  . 
assembled  at  the  door  and  open  windows 
of  a  house  newly-built.  An  earnest  ex- 
pression glows  in  every  face  ...  and 
some  press  inward  as  if  the  bread  of  life 
were  to  be  dealt  forth,  and  they  feared  to 
lose  their  share." 

In  plain  English  Ann  Hutchinson's 
doctrines  were  these :  a  She  held  and  advo- 
cated as  the  highest  truth,"  writes  Mr. 

217 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOETEEES 

Drake,  "  that  a  person  could  be  justified 
only  by  an  actual  and  manifest  revelation 
of  the  Spirit  to  him  personally.  There 
could  be  no  other  evidence  of  grace.  She 
repudiated  a  doctrine  of  works,  and  she  de- 
nied that  holiness  of  living  alone  could  be 
received  as  evidence  of  regeneration,  since 
hypocrites  might  live  outwardly  as  pure 
lives  as  the  saints  do.  The  Puritan 
churches  held  that  sanctification  by  the 
will  was  evidence  of  justification."  In  ad- 
vancing these  views,  Mrs.  Hutchinson's 
pronounced  personal  magnetism  stood  her 
in  good  stead.  She  made  many  converts, 
and,  believing  herself  inspired  to  do  a  cer- 
tain work,  and  emboldened  by  the  increas- 
ing number  of  her  followers,  she  soon 
became  unwisely  and  unpleasantly  aggres- 
sive in  her  criticisms  of  those  ministers 
who  preached  a  covenant  of  works.  She 
seems  to  have  been  led  into  speaking  her 
218 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

mind  as  to  doctrines  and  persons  more 
freely  than  was  consistent  with  prudence 
and  moderation,  because  she  was  altogether 
unsuspicious  that  what  was  being  said  in 
the  privacy  of  her  own  house  was  being 
carefully  treasured  up  against  her.  So  she 
constantly  added  fuel  to  the  flame,  which 
was  soon  to  burst  forth  to  her  undoing. 

She  was  accused  of  fostering  sedition 
in  the  church,  and  was  then  confronted 
with  charges  relative  to  the  meetings  of 
women  held  at  her  house.  This  she  suc- 
cessfully parried. 

It  looked  indeed  as  if  she  would  surely 
be  acquitted,  when  by  an  impassioned  dis- 
course upon  special  revelations  that  had 
come  to  her,  and  an  assertion  that  God 
would  miraculously  protect  her  whatever 
the  court  might  decree,  she  impugned  the 
position  of  her  judges  and  roused  keen 
resentment.  Because  of  this  it  was  that 

219 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

she  was  banished  "  as  unfit  for  our  so- 
ciety." In  the  colony  records  of  Massachu- 
setts the  sentence  pronounced  reads  as 
follows :  "  Mrs.  Hutchinson  (the  wife  of 
Mr.  William  Hutchinson)  being  convented 
for  traducing  the  ministers  and  their  min- 
istry in  this  country,  shee  declared  volun- 
tarily her  revelations  for  her  ground, 
and  that  shee  should  bee  delivred  and  the 
Court  ruined  with  their  posterity;  and 
thereupon  was  banished,  and  the  mean- 
while she  was  committed  to  Mr.  Joseph 
Weld  untill  the  Court  shall  dispose  of  her." 
Mrs.  Hutchinson  passed  next  winter  ac- 
cordingly under  the  watch  and  ward  of 
Thomas  Weld,  in  the  house  of  his  brother 
Joseph,  near  what  is  now  Eustis  Street, 
Roxbury.  She  was  there  until  March, 
when,  returning  to  Boston  for  further 
trial,  she  was  utterly  cast  out,  even  John 

220 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

Cotton,  who  had  been  her  friend,  turning 
against  her. 

Mr.  Cotton  did  not  present  an  heroic 
figure  in  this  trial.  Had  he  chosen,  he 
might  have  turned  the  drift  of  public 
opinion  in  Mrs.  Hutchinson's  favour,  but 
he  was  either  too  weak  or  too  politic  to 
withstand  the  pressure  brought  to  bear 
upon  him,  and  he  gave  a  qualified  adhesion 
to  the  proceedings.  Winthrop  did  not 
hesitate  to  use  severe  measures,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  struggle  Vane,  who  deeply 
admired  the  Boston  prophetess,  left  the 
country  in  disgust.  Mrs.  Hutchinson  was 
arraigned  at  the  bar  as  if  she  had  been  a 
criminal  of  the  most  dangerous  kind.  Win- 
throp, who  presided,  catechised  her  merci- 
lessly, and  all  endeavoured  to  extort  from 
her  some  damaging  admission.  But  in  this 
they  were  unsuccessful.  "  Mrs.  Hutchin- 
son can  tell  when  to  speak  and  when  to 

221 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

hold  her  tongue,"  commented  the  governor, 
in  describing  the  court  proceedings.  Yet 
when  all  is  said,  the  "  trial "  was  but  a 
mockery,  and  those  who  read  the  proceed- 
ings as  preserved  in  the  "  History  of 
Massachusetts  Under  the  Colony  and  Prov- 
ince/' written  by  Governor  Hutchinson, 
a  descendant  of  our  heroine,  will  be  quick 
to  condemn  the  judgment  there  pro- 
nounced by  a  court  which  expounded 
theology  instead  of  law  against  a  woman 
who,  as  Coddington  truly  said,  "  had 
broken  no  law,  either  of  God  or  of  man." 
Banishment  was  the  sentence  pro- 
nounced, and  after  the  church  which  had 
so  lately  caressed  and  courted  Mrs.  Hutch- 
inson had  in  its  turn  visited  upon  her  the 
verdict  of  excommunication,  her  husband 
sold  all  his  property  and  removed  with  his 
family  to  the  island  of  Aquidneck,  as  did 
also  many  others  whose  opinions  had 
222 


OLD  1STEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

brought  them  under  the  censure  of  the 
governing  powers.  In  this  connection  it 
is  worth  noting  that  the  head  of  the  house 
of  Hutchinson  stood  right  valiantly  by  his 
persecuted  wife,  and  when  a  committee  of 
the  Boston  church  went  in  due  time  to 
Rhode  Island  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 
back  into  the  fold  the  sheep  which  they  ad- 
judged lost,  Mr.  Hutchinson  told  them 
bluntly  that,  far  from  being  of  their 
opinion,  he  accounted  his  wife  "  a  dear 
saint  and  servant  of  God." 

The  rest  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson's  story  is 
soon  told.  Upon  the  death  of  her  husband, 
which  occurred  five  years  after  the  banish- 
ment, she  went  with  her  family  into  the 
Dutch  territory  of  New  Netherlands,  set- 
tling near  what  is  now  New  Rochelle.  And 
scarcely  had  she  become  established  in  this 
place  when  her  house  was  suddenly  as- 
saulted by  hostile  Indians,  who,  in  their 

323 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

revengeful  fury,  murdered  the  whole  fam- 
ily, excepting  only  one  daughter,  who  was 
carried  away  into  captivity.  Thus  in  the 
tragedy  of  an  Indian  massacre  was 
quenched  the  light  of  the  most  remark- 
able intellect  Boston  has  ever  made  historic 
by  misunderstanding. 

Hawthorne,  in  writing  in  his  early  man- 
hood of  Mrs.  Hutchinson  ("  Biographical 
Sketches  "),  humourously  remarked,  Seer 
that  he  was :  "  There  are  portentous  indi- 
cations, changes  gradually  taking  place  in 
the  habits  and  feelings  of  the  gentler  sex, 
which  seem  to  threaten  our  posterity  with 
many  of  those  public  women  whereof  one 
was  a  burden  too  grievous  for  our  fathers." 

Fortunately,  we  of  to-day  have  learned 
to  take  our  clubwomen  less  tragically  than 
Winthrop  was  able  to  do. 


224 


IN  THE  KEIGN  OF  THE  WITCHES 


of  the  most  interesting  of  the 
phenomena  to  be  noted  by  the  stu- 
dent of  historical  houses  is  the 
tenacity  of  tradition.  People  may  be  told 
again  and  again  that  a  story  attributed  to 
a  certain  site  has  been  proven  untrue,  but 
they  still  look  with  veneration  on  a  place 
which  has  been  hallowed  many  years,  and 
refuse  to  give  up  any  alluring  name  by 
which  they  have  known  it.  A  notable 
example  of  this  is  offered  by  what  is  uni- 
versally called  the  Old  Witch  House,  sit- 
uated at  the  corner  of  Essex  and  North 
Streets,  Salem.  A  dark,  scowling  build- 
ing, set  far  enough  back  from  the  street 

225 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  RQOFTEEES 

for  a  modern  drugstore  to  stand  in  front  of 
it,  the  house  itself  is  certainly  sufficiently 
sinister  in  appearance  to  warrant  its  name, 
even  though  one  is  assured  by  authorities 
that  no  witch  was  ever  known  to  have  lived 
there.  Its  sole  connection  with  witch- 
craft, history  tells  us,  is  that  some  of  the 
preliminary  examinations  of  witches  took 
place  here,  the  house  being  at  the  time  the 
residence  of  Justice  Jonathan  Corwin. 
Yet  it  is  this  house  that  has  absorbed  the 
interest  of  historical  pilgrims  to  Salem 
through  many  years,  just  because  it  looks 
like  a  witch-house,  and  somebody  once 
made  a  muddled  statement  by  which  it 
came  to  be  so  regarded. 

This  house  is  the  oldest  standing  in 
Salem  or  its  vicinity,  having  been  built 
before  1635.  And  it  really  has  a  claim  to 
fame  as  the  Roger  Williams  house,  for  it 
was  here  that  the  great  "  Teacher  "  lived 
226 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

during  his  troubled  settlement  in  Salem. 
The  people  of  Salem,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, persistently  sought  Williams  as 
their  spiritual  pastor  and  master  until  the 
General  Court  at  Boston  unseated  the 
Salem  deputies  for  the  acts  of  their  con- 
stituents in  retaining  a  man  of  whom  they 
disapproved,  and  the  magistrates  sent 
a  vessel  to  Salem  to  remove  Mr.  Will- 
iams to  England.  The  minister  eluded  his 
persecutors  by  fleeing  through  the  wintry 
snows  into  the  wilderness,  to  become  the 
founder  of  the  State  of  Rhode  Island. 

Mr.  Williams  was  a  close  friend  and 
confidential  adviser  of  Governor  Endicott, 
and  those  who  were  alarmed  at  the  govern- 
or's impetuosity  in  cutting  the  cross  from 
the  king's  colours,  attributed  the  act  to 
his  [Williams's]  influence.  In  taking  his 
departure  from  the  old  house  of  the  pic- 
ture to  make  his  way  to  freedom,  Williams 

227 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

had  no  guide  save  a  pocket  compass,  whicli 
his  descendants  still  exhibit,  and  no  reli- 
ance but  the  friendly  disposition  of  the 
Indians  toward  him. 

But  it  is  of  the  witchcraft  delusion  with 
which  the  house  of  our  picture  is  connected 
rather  than  with  Williams  and  his  story, 
that  I  wish  now  to  speak.  Jonathan  Cor- 
win,  or  Curwin,  who  was  the  house's  link 
to  witchcraft,  was  made  a  councillor  under 
the  new  charter  granted  Massachusetts  by 
King  William  in  1692,  and  was,  as  has 
been  said,  one  of  the  justices  before  whom 
the  preliminary  witch  examinations  were 
held.  He  it  was  who  officiated  at  the  trial 
of  Rebecca  Nourse,  of  Danvers,  hanged  as 
a  witch  July  19,  1692,  as  well  as  at  many 
other  less  remarkable  and  less  revolting 
cases. 

Rebecca  Nourse,  aged  and  infirm  and 
universally  beloved  by  her  neighbours,  was 
228 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

accused  of  being  a  witch  —  why,  one  is 
unable  to  find  out.  The  jury  was  con- 
vinced of  her  innocence,  and  brought  in  a 
verdict  of  "  not  guilty,"  but  the  court  sent 
them  out  again  with  instructions  to  find 
her  guilty.  This  they  did,  and  she  was 
executed.  The  tradition  is  that  her  sons 
disinterred  her  body  by  stealth  from  the 
foot  of  the  gallows  where  it  had  been 
thrown,  and  brought  it  to  the  old  home- 
stead, now  still  standing  in  Danvers,  laying 
it  reverently,  and  with  many  tears,  in  the 
little  family  burying  ground  near  by. 

The  majority  of  the  persons  condemned 
in  Salem  were  either  old  or  weak-witted, 
victims  who  in  their  testimony  condemned 
themselves,  or  seemed  to  the  jury  to  do 
so.  Tituba,  the  Indian  slave,  is  an  example 
of  this.  She  was  tried  in  March,  1692, 
by  the  Justice  Corwin  of  the  big,  dark 
house.  She  confessed  that  under  threats 

229 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOETREES 

from  Satan,  who  had  most  often  appeared 
to  her  as  a  man  in  black,  accompanied 
by  a  yellow  bird,  she  had  tortured  the 
girls  who  appeared  against  her.  She 
named  accomplices,  and  was  condemned 
to  imprisonment.  After  a  few  months 
she  was  sold  to  pay  the  expenses  of 
her  lodging  in  jail,  and  is  lost  to  his- 
tory. But  this  was  by  no  means  the  end 
of  the  matter.  The  "  afflicted  children  " 
in  Salem  who  had  made  trouble  be- 
fore now  began  to  accuse  men  and  women 
of  unimpeachable  character.  Within  a 
few  months  several  hundred  people  were 
arrested  and  thrown  into  jails.  As  Gov- 
ernor Hutch  inson,  the  historian  of  the 
time,  points  out,  the  only  way  to  prevent 
an  accusation  was  to  become  an  accuser 
oneself.  The  state  of  affairs  was  indeed 
analogous  to  that  which  obtained  in  France 
a  century  later,  when,  during  the  Reign  of 
230 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

Terror,  men  of  property  and  position  lived 
in  the  hourly  fear  of  being  regarded  as 
"  a  suspect,"  and  frequently  threw  suspi- 
cion on  their  neighbours  the  better  to  re- 
tain their  own  heads. 

We  of  to-day  cannot  understand  the 
madness  that  inspired  such  cruelty.  But 
in  the  light  of  Michelet's  theory,  —  that  in 
the  oppression  and  dearth  of  every  kind 
of  ideal  interest  in  rural  populations 
some  safety-valve  had  to  be  found,  and 
that  there  were  real  organised  secret  meet- 
ings, witches'  Sabbaths,  to  supply  this  need 
of  sensation,  —  the  thing  is  less  difficult 
to  comprehend.  The  religious  hysteria 
that  resulted  in  the  banishment  of  Mrs. 
Hutchinson  was  but  another  phase  of  the 
same  thing.  And  the  degeneration  to  be 
noted  to-day  in  the  remote  hill-towns  of 
New  England  is  likewise  attributable  to 
Michelet's  "  dearth  of  ideal  interest." 

231 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

The  thing  once  started,  it  grew,  of 
course,  by  what  it  fed  upon.  Professor 
William  James,  Harvard's  distinguished 
psychologist,  has  traced  to  torture  the  so- 
called  "  confessions "  on  which  the  evil 
principally  throve.  A  person,  he  says, 
was  suddenly  found  to  be  suffering  from 
what  we  to-day  should  call  hysteria,  per- 
haps, but  what  in  those  days  was  called 
a  witch  disease.  A  witch  then  had  to  be 
found  to  account  for  the  disease ;  a  scape- 
goat must  of  necessity  be  brought  forward. 
Some  poor  old  woman  was  thereupon 
picked  out  and  subjected  to  atrocious  tor- 
ture. If  she  "  confessed,"  the  torture 
ceased.  Naturally  she  very  often  "  con- 
fessed," thus  implicating  others  and 
damning  herself.  Negative  suggestion  this 
modern  psychologist  likewise  offers  as 
light  upon  witchcraft.  The  witches  sel- 
dom cried,  no  matter  what  their  anguish 
232 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

of  mind  might  be.  The  inquisitors  used 
to  say  to  them  then,  "  If  you're  riot  a 
witch,  cry,  let  us  see  your  tears.  There, 
there !  you  can't  cry !  That  proves  you're 
a  witch !  " 

Moreover,  that  was  an  age  when  every- 
body read  the  Bible,  and  believed  in  its 
verbal  inspiration.  And  there  in  Exodus 
(22:18),  is  the  plain  command,  "Thou 
shalt  not  suffer  a  witch  to  live."  Cotton 
Mather,  the  distinguished  young  divine, 
had  published  a  work  affirming  his  belief 
in  witchcraft,  and  detailing  his  study  of 
some  bewitched  children  in  Charlestown, 
one  of  whom  he  had  taken  into  his  own 
family,  the  better  to  observe  the  case. 
The  king  believed  in  it,  and  Queen  Anne, 
to  whose  name  we  usually  prefix  the  adjec- 
tive "  good,"  wrote  to  Governor  Phips  a 
letter  which  shows  that  she  admitted 
witchcraft  as  a  thing  unquestioned. 

233 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

It  is  in  connection  with  the  witchcraft 
delusion  in  Salem  that  we  get  the  one 
instance  in  New  England  of  the  old  Eng- 
lish penalty  for  contumacy,  that  of  a  vic- 
tim's being  pressed  to  death.  Giles  Corey, 
who  believed  in  witchcraft  and  was  instru- 
mental in  the  conviction  of  his  wife,  so 
suffered,  partly  to  atone  for  his  early 
cowardice  and  partly  to  save  his  property 
for  his  children.  This  latter  thing  he 
could  not  have  done  if  he  had  been  con- 
victed of  witchcraft,  so  after  pleading 
"  not  guilty/'  he  remained  mute,  refusing 
to  add  the  necessary  technical  words  that  he 
would  be  tried  "  by  God  and  his  country." 

The  arrest  of  Mrs.  Corey,  we  learn,  fol- 
lowed closely  on  the  heels  of  that  of  Tituba 
and  her  companions.  The  accused  was  a 
woman  of  sixty,  and  the  third  wife  of 
Corey.  She  seems  to  have  been  a  person  of 
unusual  strength  of  character,  and  from 
234 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

the  first  denounced  the  witchcraft  excite- 
ment, trying  to  persuade  her  husband,  who 
believed  all  the  monstrous  stories  then  cur- 
rent, not  to  attend  the  hearings  or  in  any 
way  countenance  the  proceedings.  Per- 
haps it  was  this  well-known  attitude  of  hers 
that  directed  suspicion  to  her. 

At  her  trial  the  usual  performance  was 
enacted.  The  "  afflicted  girls  "  fell  on  the 
floor,  uttered  piercing  shrieks,  and  cried 
out  upon  their  victim.  "  There  is  a  man 
whispering  in  her  ear !  "  one  of  them  sud- 
denly exclaimed.  "  What  does  he  say  to 
you  ? "  the  judge  demanded  of  Martha 
Corey,  accepting  at  once  the  "  spectral 
evidence."  "  We  must  not  believe  all  these 
distracted  children  say,'7  was  her  sensible 
answer.  But  good  sense  was  not  much 
regarded  at  witch  trials,  and  she  was  con- 
victed and  not  long  afterward  executed. 
Her  husband's  evidence,  which  went 

235 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

strongly  against  her,  is  here  given  as  a 
good  example  of  much  of  the  testimony 
by  which  the  nineteen  Salem  victims  of 
the  delusion  were  sent  to  Gallows  Hill. 

"  One  evening  I  was  sitting  by  the  fire 
when  my  wife  asked  me  to  go  to  bed.  I 
told  her  that  I  would  go  to  prayer,  and 
when  I  went  to  prayer  I  could  not  utter 
my  desires  with  any  sense,  nor  open  my 
mouth  to  speak.  After  a  little  space  I 
did  according  to  my  measure  attend  the 
duty.  Some  time  last  week  I  fetched  an 
ox  well  out  of  the  woods  about  noon,  and 
he  laying  down  in  the  yard,  I  went  to 
raise  him  to  yoke  him,  but  he  could  not 
rise,  but  dragged  his  hinder  parts  as  if 
he  had  been  hip  shot,  but  after  did  rise. 
I  had  a  cat  some  time  last  week  strongly 
taken  on  the  sudden,  and  did  make  me 
think  she  would  have  died  presently.  My 
wife  bid  me  knock  her  in  the  head,  but 
236 


OLD  1STEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

I  did  not,  and  since  she  is  well.  My  wife 
hath  been  wont  to  sit  up  after  I  went  to 
bed,  and  I  have  perceived  her  to  kneel  down 
as  if  she  were  at  prayer,  but  heard 
nothing." 

Incredible  as  it  seems  to-day,  this  was 
accepted  as  "  evidence  "  of  Mrs.  Corey's 
bewitchment.  Then,  as  so  often  happened, 
Giles  Corey,  the  accuser,  was  soon  himself 
accused.  He  was  arrested,  taken  from  his 
mill,  and  brought  before  the  judges  of  the 
special  court  appointed  by  Governor 
Phips  to  hear  the  witch  trials  in  Salem. 
Again  the  girls  went  through  their  per- 
formance, again  there  was  an  endeavour 
to  extort  a  confession.  But  this  time 
Corey  acted  the  part  of  a  man.  He  had 
had  leisure  for  reflection  since  he  had  tes- 
tified against  his  wife,  and  he  was  now  as 
sure  that  she  was  guiltless  as  that  he  him- 
self was.  Bitter,  indeed,  must  have  been 

237 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 


the  realisation  that  he  had  helped  convict 
her.  But  he  atoned,  as  has  been  said,  to 
her  and  to  his  children  by  subjecting  him- 
self to  veritable  martyrdom.  Though  an 
old  man  whose  hair  was  whitened  with  the 
snows  of  eighty  winters,  he  "  was  laid  on 
his  back,  a  board  placed  on  his  body  with  as 
great  a  weight  upon  it  as  he  could  endure, 
while  his  sole  diet  consisted  of  a  few 
morsels  of  bread  one  day,  and  a  draught 
of  water  the  alternate  day  until  death  put 
an  end  to  his  sufferings."  Rightly  must 
this  mode  of  torture  have  been  named 
peine  forte  et  dure.  On  Gallows  Hill 
three  days  later  occurred  the  execution  of 
eight  persons,  the  last  so  to  suffer  in  the 
Colony.  Nineteen  people  in  all  were 
hanged,  and  one  was  pressed  to  death  in 
Salem,  but  there  is  absolutely  no  founda- 
tion for  the  statement  that  some  were 
burned. 

238 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

The  revulsion  that  followed  the  cessa- 
tion of  the  delusion  was  as  marked  as  was 
the  precipitation  that  characterised  the 
proceedings.  Many  of  the  clergy  con- 
cerned in  the  trials  offered  abject  apologies, 
and  Judge  Sewall,  noblest  of  all  the  civil 
and  ecclesiastical  authorities  implicated  in 
the  madness,  stood  up  on  Fast  Day  before 
a  great  congregation  in  the  South  Church, 
Boston,  acknowledged  his  grievous  error 
in  accepting  "  spectral  evidence/'  and  to 
the  end  of  his  life  did  penance  yearly  in 
the  same  meeting-house  for  his  part  in  the 
transactions. 

Not  inappropriately  the  gloomy  old 
house  in  which  the  fanatical  Corwin  had 
his  home  is  to-day  given  over  to  a  dealer 
in  antique  furniture.  Visitors  are  freely 
admitted  upon  application,  and  very  many 
in  the  course  of  the  year  go  inside  to  feast 
their  eyes  on  the  ancient  wainscoting  and 

239 


OLD  JSTEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

timbers.  The  front  door  and  the  overhang- 
ing roof  are  just  as  in  the  time  of  the 
witches,  and  from  a  recessed  area  at  the 
back,  narrow  casements  and  excrescent 
stairways  are  still  to  be  seen.  The  original 
house  had,  however,  peaked  gables,  with 
pineapples  carved  in  wood  surmounting  its 
latticed  windows  and  colossal  chimneys 
that  placed  it  unmistakably  in  the  age 
of  ruffs,  Spanish  cloaks,  and  long  rapiers. 


240 


LADY  WENTWORTH  OF  THE  HALL 

one  of  those  pleasant  long  even- 
ings?  when  the  group  of  friends  that 
Longfellow  represents  in  his  "  Tales 
of  the  Wayside  Inn  "  had  gathered  in  the 
twilight  about  the  cheery  open  fire  of  the 
house  at  Sudbury  to  tell  each  other  tales 
of  long  ago,  we  hear  best  the  story  of 
Martha  Hilton.  We  seem  to  catch  the 
poet's  voice  as  he  says  after  the  legend  from 
the  Baltic  h^s  been  alluringly  related  by 
the  Musician : 

"  These  tales  you  tell  are,  one  and  all, 
Of  the  Old  World, 

Flowers  gathered  from  a  crumbling  wall, 
Dead  leaves  that  rustle  as  they  fall ; 
Let  me  present  you  in  their  stead 
Something  of  our  New  England  earth  ; 
A  tale  which,  though  of  no  great  worth, 
Has  still  this  merit,  that  it  yields 

241 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

A  certain  freshness  of  the  fields, 

A  sweetness  as  of  home-made  bread." 

And  then,  as  the  others  leaned  back  to 
listen,  there  followed  the  beautiful  ballad 
which  celebrates  the  fashion  in  which 
Martha  Hilton,  a  kitchen  maid,  became 
"  Lady  Wentworth  of  the  Hall." 

The  old  Wentworth  mansion,  where,  as 
a  beautiful  girl,  Martha  came,  served,  and 
conquered  all  who  knew  her,  and  even  once 
received  as  her  guest  the  Father  of  his 
Country,  is  still  in  an  admirably  preserved 
state,  and  the  Wayside  Inn,  rechristened 
the  Red  Horse  Tavern,  still  entertains  glad 
guests. 

This  inn  was  built  about  1686,  and  for 
almost  a  century  and  a  half  from  1714  it 
was  kept  as  a  public  house  by  generation 
after  generation  of  Howes,  the  last  of 
the  name  at  the  inn  being  Lyman  Howe, 
who  served  guests  of  the  house  from  1831 
242 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

to  about  1860,  and  was  the  good  friend  and 
comrade  of  the  brilliant  group  of  men 
Longfellow  has  poetically  immortalised  in 
the  "  Tales."  The  modern  successor  of 
Staver's  Inn,  or  the  "  Earl  of  Halifax,"  in 
the  doorway  of  which  Longfellow's  worthy 
dame  once  said,  "  as  plain  as  day :  " 

"  Oh,  Martha  Hilton  !     Fie  !  how  dare  you  go 
About  the  town  half  dressed  and  looking  so!  " 

is  also  standing,  and  has  recently  been 
decorated  by  a  memorial  tablet. 

In  Portsmouth  Martha  Hilton  is  well 
remembered,  thanks  to  Longfellow  and 
tradition,  as  a  slender  girl  who,  barefooted, 
ragged,  with  neglected  hair,  bore  from  the 
well 

"  A  pail  of  water  dripping  through  the  street, 
And  bathing  as  she  went  her  naked  feet." 

Nor  do  the  worthy  people  of  Portsmouth 
fail  to  recall  the  other  actor  in  this  mem- 

243 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

orable   drama,    upon   which   the   Earl   of 
Halifax  once  benignly  smiled: 


"  A  portly  person,  with  three-cornered  hat, 
A  crimson  velvet  coat,  head  high  in  air, 
Gold-headed  cane  and  nicely  powdered  hair, 
And  diamond  buckles  sparkling  at  his  knees, 
Dignified,  stately,  florid,  much  at  ease. 
For  this  was  Governor  Wentworth,  driving  down 
To  Little  Harbour,  just  beyond  the  town, 
Where  his  Great  House  stood,  looking  out  to  sea, 
A  goodly  place,  where  it  was  good  to  be." 


There  are  even  those  who  can  perfectly 
recollect  when  the  house  was  very  venerable 
in  appearance,  and  when  in  its  rooms  were 
to  be  seen  the  old  spinet,  the  Strafford  por- 
trait, and  many  other  things  delightful  to 
the  antiquary.  Longfellow's  description 
of  this  ancient  domicile  is  particularly 
beautiful : 

< « It  was  a  pleasant  mansion,  an  abode 
Near  and  yet  hidden  from  the  great  highroad, 
244 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

Sequestered  among  trees,  a  noble  pile, 
Baronial  and  Colonial  in  its  style ; 
Gables  and  dormer  windows  everywhere  — 
Pandalan  pipes,  on  which  all  winds  that  blew 
Made  mournful  music  the  whole  winter  through. 
Within,  unwonted  splendours  met  the  eye, 
Panels,  and  floors  of  oak,  and  tapestry  ; 
Carved  chimneypieces,  where,  on  brazen  dogs, 
Revelled  and  roared  the  Christmas  fire  of  logs. 
Doors  opening  into  darkness  unawares, 
Mysterious  passages  and  flig'its  of  stairs; 
And  on  the  walls,  in  heavy-gilded  frames, 
The   ancestral  Wentworths,   with  old   Scripture 

names. 
Such    was    the   mansion   where   the   great   man 

dwelt." 

The  place  thus  prettily  pictured  is  at 
the  mouth  of  Sagamore  Creek,  not  more 
than  two  miles  from  the  town  of  Ports- 
mouth. The  exterior  of  the  mansion  as  it 
looks  to-day  does  not  of  itself  live  up  to 
one's  preconceived  idea  of  colonial  mag- 
nificence. A  rambling  collection  of  build- 
ings, seemingly  the  result  of  various  "  L  " 
expansions,  form  an  inharmonious  whole 

245 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

which  would  have  made  Ruskin  quite  mad. 
The  site  is,  however,  charming,  for  the 
place  commands  a  view  up  and  down  Little 
Harbour,  though  concealed  by  an  eminence 
from  the  road.  The  house  is  said  to  have 
originally  contained  as  many  as  fifty-two 
rooms.  If  so,  it  has  shrunk  in  recent 
years.  But  there  is  still  plenty  of  elbow 
space,  and  the  cellar  is  even  to-day  large 
enough  to  accommodate  a  fair-sized  troop 
of  soldiery. 

As  one  enters,  one  notices  first  the  rack 
in  which  were  wont  to  be  deposited  the 
muskets  of  the  governor's  guard.  And  it 
requires  only  a  little  imagination  to  pic- 
ture the  big  rooms  as  they  were  in  the 
old  days,  with  the  portrait  of  Strafford 
dictating  to  his  secretary  just  before  his 
execution,  the  rare  Copley,  the  green  dam- 
ask-covered furniture,  and  the  sedan-chair, 
all  exhaling  an  atmosphere  of  old-time 
246 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

splendour  and  luxury.  Something  of  im- 
pressiveness  has  recently  been  introduced 
into  the  interior  by  the  artistic  arrange- 
ment of  old  furniture  which  the  house's 
present  owner,  Mr.  Templeton  Coolidge, 
has  brought  about.  But  the  exterior  is 
"  spick-span  "  in  modern  yellow  and  white 
paint ! 

Yet  it  was  in  this  very  house  that 
Martha  for  seven  years  served  her  future 
lord.  There,  busy  with  mop  and  pail  — 

"  A  maid  of  all  work,  whether  coarse  or  fine, 
A  servant  who  made  service  seem  divine ! " 

she  grew  from  childhood  into  the  lovely 
woman  whom  Governor  Wentworth  wooed 
and  won. 

In  the  March  of  1760  it  was  that  the 
host  at  Little  Harbour  exclaimed  abruptly 
to  the  good  rector  of  St.  John's,  who  had 
been  dining  sumptuously  at  the  manor- 
house  : 

247 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

"  This  is  my  birthday ;  it  shall  likewise 
be  my  wedding-day,  and  you  shall  marry 
me ! "  No  wonder  the  listening  guests 
were  greatly  mystified,  as  Martha  and  the 
portly  governor  were  joined  "  across  the 
walnuts  and  the  wine  "  by  the  Reverend 
Arthur  Brown,  of  the  Established  Church. 

And  now,  of  course,  Martha  had  her 
chariot,  from  which  she  could  look  down 
as  disdainfully  as  did  the  Earl  of  Halifax 
on  the  humble  folk  who  needs  must  walk. 
The  sudden  elevation  seems,  indeed,  to 
have  gone  to  my  lady's  head.  For  tradi- 
tion says  that  very  shortly  after  her  mar- 
riage Martha  dropped  her  ring  and  sum- 
moned one  of  her  late  kitchen  colleagues 
to  rescue  it  from  the  floor.  But  the  col- 
league had  quickly  become  shortsighted, 
and  Martha,  dismissing  her  hastily,  picked 
up  the  circlet  herself. 

Before  the  Reverend  Arthur  Brown  was 
248 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOETREES 

gathered  to  his  fathers,  he  had  another 
opportunity  to  marry  the  fascinating 
Martha  to  another  Wentworth,  a  man  of 
real  soldierly  distinction.  Her  second  hus- 
band was  redcoated  Michael,  of  England, 
who  had  been  in  the  battle  of  Culloden. 

This  Colonel  Michael  Wentworth  was 
the  "  great  buck  "  of  his  day,  and  was  wont 
to  fiddle  at  Stoodley's  far  into  the  morning 
for  sheer  love  of  fiddling  and  revelry. 
Stoodley's  has  now  fallen  indeed !  It  is 
the  brick  building  marked  "custom-house," 
and  it  stands  at  the  corner  of  Daniel  and 
Penhallow  Streets. 

To  this  Lord  and  Lady  Wentworth  it 
was  that  Washington,  in  1789,  came  as  a 
guest,  "  rowed  by  white-jacketed  sailors 
straight  to  their  vine-hung,  hospitable 
door."  At  this  time  there  was  a  younger 
Martha  in  the  house,  one  who  had  grown 
up  to  play  the  spinet  by  the  long,  low 

249 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

windows,  and  who  later  joined  her  fate 
to  that  of  still  another  Wentworth,  with 
whom  she  passed  to  France. 

A  few  years  later,  in  1795,  the  "  great 
buck "  of  his  time  took  to  a  bankrupt's 
grave  in  New  York,  forgetting,  so  the  story 
goes,  the  eternal  canon  fixed  against  self- 
slaughter. 

But  for  all  we  tell  as  a  legend  this  story 
of  Martha  Hilton,  and  for  all  her  "  cap- 
ture "  of  the  governor  has  come  down  to 
us  almost  as  a  myth,  it  is  less  than  fifty 
years  ago  that  the  daughter  of  the  man 
who  fiddled  at  Stoodley's  and  of  the  girl 
who  went  barefooted  and  ragged  through 
the  streets  of  Portsmouth,  passed  in  her 
turn  to  the  Great  Beyond.  Verily,  we  in 
America  have,  after  all,  only  a  short  his- 
torical perspective. 


250 


A1ST   HISTOKIC    TEAGEDY 


hundred  years  ago  there  was  com- 
mitted  in  Dedham,  Massachusetts, 
one  of  the  most  famous  murders  of 
this  country,  a  crime,  some  description  of 
which  falls  naturally  enough  into  these 
chapters,  inasmuch  as  the  person  punished 
as  the  criminal  belonged  to  the  illustrious 
Fairbanks  family,  whose  picturesque  home- 
stead is  widely  known  as  one  of  the  oldest 
houses  in  New  England. 

In  the  Massachusetts  Federalist  of 
Saturday,  September  12,  1801,  we  find 
an  editorial  paragraph  which,  apart  from 
its  intrinsic  interest,  is  valuable  as  an 
example  of  the  great  difference  between 

251 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

ancient  and  modern  journalistic  treatment 
of  murder  matter.  This  paragraph  reads, 
in  the  quaint  old  type  of  the  time:  "  On 
Thursday  last  Jason  Fairbanks  was  ex- 
ecuted at  Dedham  for  the  murder  of  Miss 
Elizabeth  Fales.  He  was  taken  from  the 
gaol  in  this  town  at  eight  o'clock,  by  the 
sheriff  of  this  county,  and  delivered  to  the 
sheriff  of  Norfolk  County  at  the  boundary 
line  between  the  two  counties. 

"  He  was  in  an  open  coach,  and  was 
attended  therein  by  the  Reverend  Doctor 
Thatcher  and  two  peace  officers.  From  the 
county  line  in  Norfolk  he  was  conducted 
to  the  Dedham  gaol  by  Sheriff  Cutler, 
his  deputies,  and  a  score  of  cavalry  under 
Captain  Davis;  and  from  the  gaol  in 
Dedham  to  the  place  of  execution  was 
guarded  by  two  companies  of  cavalry  and 
a  detachment  of  volunteer  infantry. 

"  He  mounted  the  scaffold  about  a 
252 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

quarter  before  three  with  his  usual  steadi- 
ness, and  soon  after  making  a  signal  with 
his  handkerchief,  was  swung  off.  After 
hanging  about  twenty-five  minutes,  his 
body  was  cut  down  and  buried  near  the 
gallows.  His  deportment  during  his 
journey  to  and  at  the  place  of  execution 
was  marked  with  the  same  apathy  and 
indifference  which  he  discovered  before 
and  since  his  trial.  We  do  not  learn  he 
has  made  any  confession  of  his  guilt." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  far  from  making 
a  confession  of  his  guilt,  Jason  Fairbanks 
denied  even  to  the  moment  of  his  execution 
that  he  killed  Elizabeth  Fales,  and  his 
family  and  many  other  worthy  citizens 
of  Dedham  believed,  and  kept  believing  to 
the  end  of  their  lives,  that  the  girl  com- 
mitted suicide,  and  that  an  innocent  man 
was  punished  for  a  crime  he  could  never 
have  perpetrated. 

253 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

In  the  trial  it  was  shown  that  this  beau- 
tiful girl  of  eighteen  had  been  for  many 
years  extremely  fond  of  the  young  man, 
Fairbanks,  and  that  her  love  was  ardently 
reciprocated.  Jason  Fairbanks  had  not 
been  allowed,  however,  to  visit  the  girl 
at  the  home  of  her  father,  though  the 
Fales  place  was  only  a  little  more  than 
a  mile  from  his  own  dwelling,  the  vener- 
able Fairbanks  house.  None  the  less,  they 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  meeting  fre- 
quently, in  company  with  others,  en  route 
to  the  weekly  singing  school,  the  husking 
bees  and  the  choir  practice.  Both  the 
young  people  were  extremely  fond  of 
music,  and  this  mutual  interest  seems  to 
have  been  one  of  the  several  ties  which 
bound  them  together. 

In  spite,  therefore,  of  the  stern  decree 
that  young  Fairbanks  should  not  visit  Miss 
Fales  at  her  home,  there  was  considerable 
254 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  BOOFTREES 

well-improved  opportunity  for  intercourse, 
and,  as  was  afterward  shown,  the  two  often 
had  long  walks  together,  apart  from  the 
others  of  their  acquaintance.  One  of  their 
appointments  was  made  for  the  day  of  the 
murder,  May  18,  1801.  Fairbanks  was 
to  meet  his  sweetheart,  he  told  a  friend, 
in  the  pasture  near  her  home,  and  it  was 
his  intention  at  that  time  to  persuade  her 
to  run  away  with  him  and  be  married. 
Unfortunately  for  Fairbanks' s  case  at  the 
trial,  it  was  shown  that  he  told  this  same 
friend  that  if  Elizabeth  Fales  would  not 
run  away  with  him  he  would  do  her  harm. 
And  one  other  thing  which  militated 
against  the  acquittal  of  the  accused  youth 
was  the  fact  that,  as  an  inducement  to  the 
girl  to  elope  with  him,  Fairbanks  showed 
her  a  forged  paper,  upon  which  she  ap- 
peared to  have  declared  legally  her  inten- 
tion to  marry  him. 

255 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

One  tragic  element  of  the  whole  affair 
was  the  fact  that  Fairbanks  had  no  definite 
work  and  no  assured  means  of  support. 
Young  people  of  good  family  did  not 
marry  a  hundred  years  ago  without  think- 
ing, and  thinking  to  some  purpose,  of 
what  cares  and  expense  the  future  might 
bring  them.  The  man,  if  he  was  an  hon- 
ourable man,  expected  always  to  have  a 
home  for  his  wife,  and  since  Fairbanks 
was  an  invalid,  "  debilitated  in  his  right 
arm,"  as  the  phrasing  of  the  time  put  it, 
and  had  never  been  able  to  do  his  part  of 
the  farm  work,  he  had  lived  what  his  stern 
forebears  would  have  called  an  idle  life, 
and  consequently  utterly  lacked  the  means 
to  marry.  That  he  was  something  of  a 
spoiled  child  also  developed  at  the  trial, 
which  from  the  first  went  against  the 
young  man  because  of  the  testimony  of 
the  chums  to  whom  he  had  confided  his 
256 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  BOOFTREES 

intention  to  do  Elizabeth  Fales  an  injury 
if  she  would  not  go  to  Wrentham  and 
marry  him. 

The  prisoner's  counsel  were  two  very 
clever  young  lawyers  who  afterward  came 
to  be  men  of  great  distinction  in  Massa- 
chusetts —  no  others,  in  fact,  than  Harri- 
son Gray  Otis  and  John  Lowell.  These 
men  advanced  very  clever  arguments  to 
show  that  Elizabeth  Fales,  maddened  by  a 
love  which  seemed  unlikely  ever  to  end  in 
marriage,  had  seized  from  Jason  the  large 
knife  which  he  was  using  to  mend  a  quill 
pen  as  he  walked  to  meet  her,  and  with  this 
knife  had  inflicted  upon  herself  the  terri- 
ble wounds,  from  the  effect  of  which  she 
died  almost  instantaneously.  The  fact 
that  Jason  was  himself  wounded  in  the 
struggle  was  ingeniously  utilised  by  the 
defence  to  show  that  he  had  received  mur- 
derous blows  from  her  hand,  for  the  very 

257 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOETKEES 

reason  that  he  had  attempted  (unsuccess- 
fully, inasmuch  as  his  right  arm  was  im- 
paired) to  wrest  the  mad  girl's  murderous 
weapon  from  her. 

The  counsel  also  made  much  of  the  fact 
that,  though  it  was  at  midday  and  many 
people  were  not  far  off,  no  screams  were 
heard.  A  vigorous  girl  like  Elizabeth 
Fales  would  not  have  submitted  easily, 
they  held,  to  any  such  assault  as  was 
charged.  In  the  course  of  the  trial  a  very 
moving  description  of  the  sufferings  such 
a  high-strung,  ardent  nature  as  this  girl's 
must  have  undergone,  because  of  her  hope- 
less love,  was  used  to  show  the  reasons  for 
suicide.  And  following  the  habit  of  the 
times,  the  lawyers  turned  their  work  to 
moral  ends  by  beseeching  the  parents  in 
the  crowded  court-room  to  exercise  a 
greater  vigilance  over  the  social  life  of 
their  young  people,  and  so  prevent  the 
258 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

possibility  of  their  forming  any  such  at- 
tachment as  had  moved  Elizabeth  Fales 
to  take  her  own  life. 

Yet  all  this  eloquent  pleading  was  in 
vain,  for  the  court  found  Jason  Fairbanks 
guilty  of  murder  and  sentenced  him  to 
be  hanged.  Erom  the  court-room  he  was 
taken  to  the  Dedham  gaol,  but  on  the  night 
of  the  seventeenth  of  August  he  was  en- 
abled to  make  his  escape  through  the  offices 
of  a  number  of  men  who  believed  him 
innocent,  and  for  some  days  he  was  at 
liberty.  At  length,  however,  upon  a  reward 
of  one  thousand  dollars  being  offered  for 
his  apprehension,  he  was  captured  near 
Northampton,  Massachusetts,  which  town 
he  had  reached  on  his  journey  to  Canada. 

The  gallows  upon  which  "  justice  "  ulti- 
mately asserted  itself  is  said  to  have  been 
constructed  of  a  tree  cut  from  the  old 
Fairbanks  place. 

259 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

The  Fairbanks  house  is  still  standing, 
having  been  occupied  for  almost  two  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  years  by  the  same 
family,  which  is  now  in  the  eighth  genera- 
tion of  the  name.  The  house  is  surrounded 
by  magnificent  old  elms,  and  was  built  by 
Jonathan  Fairbanks,  who  came  from 
Sowerby,  in  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire, 
England,  in  1633.  The  cupboards  are 
filled  with  choice  china,  and  even  the 
Fairbanks  cats,  it  is  said,  drink  their  milk 
out  of  ancient  blue  saucers  that  would  drive 
a  collector  wild  with  envy. 

The  house  is  now  (1902)  the  home  of 
Miss  Rebecca  Fairbanks,  an  old  lady  of  sev- 
enty-five years,  who  will  occupy  it  through- 
out her  lifetime,  although  the  place  is  con- 
trolled by  the  Fairbanks  Chapter  of  the 
Daughters  of  the  Revolution,  who  hold 
their  monthly  meetings  there. 

The  way  in  which  this  property  was 
260 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

acquired  by  the  organisation  named  is  in- 
teresting recent  history.  Miss  Rebecca 
Fairbanks  was  obliged  in  1895  to  sell  the 
house  to  John  Crowley,  a  real  estate  dealer 
in  Dedham.  On  April  3,  1897,  Mrs.  Nel- 
son V.  Titus,  asked  through  the  medium  of 
the  press  for  four  thousand,  five  hundred 
dollars,  necessary  to  purchase  the  house  and 
keep  it  as  a  historical  relic.  Almost  imme- 
diately Mrs.  J.  Amory  Codman  and  Miss 
Martha  Codman  sent  a  check  for  the  sum 
desired,  and  thus  performed  a  double  act 
of  beneficence.  For  it  was  now  possible 
to  ensure  to  Miss  Fairbanks  a  life  tenancy 
of  the  home  of  her  fathers  as  well  as  to 
keep  for  all  time  this  picturesque  place  as 
an  example  of  early  American  architecture. 
Hundreds  of  visitors  now  go  every  sum- 
mer to  see  the  interesting  old  house,  which 
stands  nestling  cosily  in  a  grassy  dell  just 
at  the  corner  of  East  Street  and  the  short 

261 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

"  Willow  Road  "  across  the  meadows  that 
lie  between  East  Street  and  Dedham.  This 
road  is  a  "  modern  convenience,"  and  its 
construction  was  severely  frowned  upon  by 
the  three  old  ladies  who  twenty  years  ago 
lived  together  in  the  family  homestead. 
And  though  it  made  the  road  to  the  village 
shorter  by  half  than  the  old  way,  this  had 
no  weight  with  the  inflexible  women  who 
had  inherited  from  their  long  line  of  an- 
cestors marked  decision  and  firmness  of 
character.  They  protested  against  the 
building  of  the  road,  and  when  it  was  built 
in  spite  of  their  protests  they  declared  they 
would  not  use  it,  and  kept  their  word. 
Constant  attendants  of  the  old  Congrega- 
tional church  in  Dedham,  they  went  per- 
sistently by  the  longest  way  round  rather 
than  tolerate  the  road  to  which  they  had 
objected. 

That  their  neighbours  called  them  "  set 
262 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

in  their  ways  "  goes,  of  course,  without 
saying,  but  the  women  of  the  Fairbanks 
family  have  ever  been  rigidly  conscien- 
tious, and  the  men  a  bit  obstinate.  For, 
much  as  one  would  like  to  think  the  con- 
trary true,  one  seems  forced  to  believe 
that  it  was  obstinacy  rather  than  innocency 
which  made  Jason  Fairbanks  protest  till 
the  hour  of  his  death  that  he  was  being 
unjustly  punished. 


263 


INVENTOB   MORSE'S   UNFUL- 
FILLED   AMBITION 

rHE  first  house  erected  in  Charles- 
town  after  the  destruction  of  the 
village  by  fire  in  1775  (the  coup 
d'etat    which    immediately    followed    the 
battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered), is  that  which  is  here  given  as  the 
birthplace  of  Samuel  Finley  Breese  Morse, 
the  inventor  of  the  electric  telegraph.    The 
house  is  still  standing  at  203  Main  Street, 
and  in  the  front  chamber  of  the  second 
story,  on  the  right  of  the  front  door  of  the 
entrance,  visitors  still  pause  to  render  trib- 
ute to  the  memory  of  the  babe  that  there 
drew  his  first  breath  on  April  27,  1791. 
264 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

It  was,  however,  quite  by  accident  that 
the  house  became  doubly  famous,  for  it 
was  during  the  building  of  the  parsonage, 
Pastor  Morse's  proper  home,  that  his  little 
son  came  to  gladden  his  life.  Reverend 
Jedediah  Morse  became  minister  of  the 
First  Parish  Church  on  April  30,  1789, 
the  very  date  of  Washington's  inaugura- 
tion in  New  York  as  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  two  weeks  later  married 
a  daughter  of  Judge  Samuel  Breese,  of 
New  York.  Shortly  afterward  it  was  de- 
termined to  build  a  parsonage,  and  during 
the  construction  of  this  dwelling  Doctor 
Morse  accepted  the  hospitality  of  Mr. 
Thomas  Edes,  who  then  owned  the  "  old- 
est "  house.  And  work  on  the  parsonage 
being  delayed  beyond  expectation,  Mrs. 
Morse's  little  son  was  born  in  the  Edes 
house. 

Apropos  of  the  brief  residence  of  Doctor 

265 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

Morse  in  this  house  comes  a  quaint  letter 
from  Reverend  Jeremy  Belknap,  the  staid 
old  doctor  of  divinity,  and  the  founder  of 
the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society, 
which  shows  that  girls  over  a  hundred 
years  ago  were  quite  as  much  interested 
in  young  unmarried  ministers  as  nice  girls 
ought  ever  to  be.  Two  or  three  months 
before  the  settlement  of  Mr.  Morse  in 
Charlestown,  Doctor  Belknap  wrote  to  his 
friend,  Ebenezer  Hazard,  of  New  York, 
who  was  a  relative  of  Judge  Breese : 

"  You  said  in  one  of  your  late  letters 
that  probably  Charlestown  people  would 
soon  have  to  build  a  house  for  Mr.  Morse. 
I  let  this  drop  in  a  conversation  with  a 
daughter  of  Mr.  Carey,  and  in  a  day  or 
two  it  was  all  over  Charlestown,  and  the 
girls  who  had  been  setting  their  caps  for 
him  are  chagrined.  I  suppose  it  would 
be  something  to  Mr.  Morse's  advantage 
266 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

in  point  of  bands  and  handkerchiefs,  if  this 
report  could  be  contradicted;  but  if  it 
cannot,  oh,  how  heavy  will  be  the  disap- 
pointment. When  a  young  clergyman  set- 
tles in  such  a  town  as  Charlestown,  there 
is  as  much  looking  out  for  him  as  there  is 
for  a  thousand-dollar  prize  in  a  lottery; 
and  though  the  girls  know  that  but  one 
can  have  him,  yet  '  who  knows  but  I  may 
be  that  one  ?  '  "  l 

Doctor  Morse's  fame  has  been  a  good 
deal  obscured  by  that  of  his  distinguished 
son,  but  he  seems  none  the  less  to  have  been 
a  good  deal  of  a  man,  and  it  is  perhaps  no 
wonder  that  the  feminine  portion  of  a 
little  place  like  Charlestown  looked  for- 
ward with  decided  interest  to  his  settling 
among  them.  We  can  even  fancy  that 
the  girls  of  the  sewing  society  studied 

1  Drake's  "Historic  Fields  and  Mansions  of  Mid- 
dlesex." Little,  Brown  &  Co.,  publishers. 

267 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EQOFTEEES 

geography  with  ardour  when  they  learned 
who  was  to  be  their  new  minister.  For 
geography  was  Doctor  Morse's  passion ;  he 
was,  indeed,  the  Alexis  Frye  of  his  period. 
This  interest  in  geography  is  said  to  have 
been  so  tremendous  with  the  man  that  once 
being  asked  by  his  teacher  at  a  Greek  reci- 
tation where  a  certain  verb  was  found,  he 
replied,  "  On  the  coast  of  Africa."  And 
while  he  was  a  tutor  at  Yale  the  want  of 
geographies  there  induced  him  to  prepare 
notes  for  his  pupils,  to  serve  as  text-books, 
which  he  eventually  printed. 

Young  Morse  seconded  his  father's  pas- 
sion for  geography  by  one  as  strongly 
marked  for  drawing,  and  the  blank  margin 
of  his  Virgil  occupied  far  more  of  his 
thoughts  than  the  text.  The  inventor  came 
indeed  only  tardily  to  discover  in  which 
direction  his  real  talent  lay.  All  his 
youth  he  worshipped  art  and  followed  (at 
268 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

considerable  distance)  his  beloved  mis- 
tress. His  penchant  for  painting,  exhibi- 
ted in  much  the  same  manner  as  Allston's, 
his  future  master,  did  not  meet  with  the 
same  encouragement 

A  caricature  (founded  upon  some  fracas 
among  the  students  at  Yale),  in  which 
the  faculty  were  burlesqued,  was  seized 
during  Morse's  student  days,  handed  to 
President  Dwight,  and  the  author,  who 
was  no  other  than  our  young  friend,  called 
up.  The  delinquent  received  a  severe  lec- 
ture upon  his  waste  of  time,  violation  of 
college  laws,  and  filial  disobedience,  with- 
out exhibiting  any  sign  of  contrition ;  but 
when  at  length  Doctor  Dwight  said  to  him, 
"  Morse,  you  are  no  painter ;  this  is  a 
rude  attempt,  a  complete  failure,"  he  was 
touched  to  the  quick,  and  could  not  keep 
back  the  tears. 

The  canvas,  executed  by  Morse  at  the 

269 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

age  of  nineteen,  of  the  landing  of  the  Pil- 
grims, which  may  be  seen  at  the  Charles- 
town  City  Hall,  is  certainly  not  a  master- 
piece. Yet  the  lad  was  determined  to  learn 
to  paint,  and  to  this  end  accompanied 
Allston  to  Europe,  where  he  became  a  pupil 
of  West,  and,  it  is  said,  also  of  Copley. 
West  had  become  the  foremost  painter 
of  his  time  in  England  when  our  ambitious 
young  artist  was  presented  to  him,  but  from 
the  beginning  he  took  a  great  interest  in 
the  Charlestown  lad,  and  showed  him  much 
attention.  Once  in  after  years  Morse  rela- 
ted to  a  friend  this  most  interesting  anec- 
dote of  his  great  master :  "  I  called  upon 
Mr.  West  at  his  house  in  Newman  Street 
one  morning,  and  in  conformity  to  the 
order  given  to  his  servant  Robert  always 
to  admit  Mr.  Leslie  and  myself  even  if  he 
was  engaged  in  his  private  studies,  I  was 
shown  into  his  studio. 
270 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

"  As  I  entered  a  half-length  portrait  of 
George  III.  stood  before  me  on  an  easel, 
and  Mr.  West  was  sitting  with  his  back 
toward  me  copying  from  it  upon  canvas. 
My  name  having  been  mentioned  to  him, 
he  did  not  turn,  but  pointing  with  the 
pencil  he  had  in  his  hand  to  the  portrait 
from  which  he  was  copying,  he  said,  '  Do 
you  see  that  picture,  Mr.  Morse  ? ' 

"  '  Yes,  sir/  I  said,  *  I  perceive  it  is  the 
portrait  of  the  king.' 

"  '  Well/  said  Mr.  West,  '  the  king  was 
sitting  to  me  for  that  portrait  when  the 
box  containing  the  American  Declaration 
of  Independence  was  handed  to  him.' 

"  *  Indeed,'  I  answered ;  '  and  what  ap- 
peared to  be  the  emotions  of  the  king? 
What  did  he  say  ? ' 

"  '  His  reply,'  said  Mr.  West,  f  was  char- 
acteristic of  the  goodness  of  his  heart :  "  If 
they  can  be  happier  under  the  govern- 

271 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

ment  they  have  chosen  than  under  me,  I 
shall  be  happy."  '  "  * 

Morse  returned  to  Boston  in  the  autumn 
of  1815,  and  there  set  up  a  studio.  But 
he  was  not  too  occupied  in  painting  to 
turn  a  hand  to  invention,  and  we  find  him 
the  next  winter  touring  New  Hampshire 
and  Vermont  trying  to  sell  to  towns  and  vil- 
lages a  fire-engine  pump  he  had  invented, 
while  seeking  commissions  to  paint  por- 
traits at  fifteen  dollars  a  head.  It  was  that 
winter  that  he  met  in  Concord,  New  Hamp- 
shire, Miss  Lucretia  P.  Walker,  whom  he 
married  in  the  autumn  of  1818,  and  whose 
death  in  February,  1825,  just  after  he 
had  successfully  fulfilled  a  liberal  com- 
mission to  paint  General  Lafayette,  was 
the  great  blow  of  his  young  manhood. 

The     National     Academy     of     Design 

1  Beacon  Biographies :  S.  F.  B.  Morse,  by  John 
Trowbridge  ;  Small,  Maynard  &  Co. 

272 


OLD  JSTEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

Morse  helped  to  found  in  New  York  in 
1826,  and  of  this  institution  he  was  first 
president.  About  the  same  time  we  find 
him  renewing  his  early  interest  in  elec- 
trical experiments.  A  few  years  later  he  is 
sailing  for  Europe,  there  to  execute  many 
copying  commissions.  And  on  his  return 
from  this  stay  abroad  the  idea  of  the 
telegraph  suggested  itself  to  him. 

Of  the  exact  way  in  which  Morse  first 
conceived  the  idea  of  making  electricity  the 
means  of  conveying  intelligence,  various 
accounts  have  been  given,  the  one  usually 
accepted  being  that  while  on  board  the 
packet-ship  Sully,  a  fellow  passenger  rela- 
ted some  experiments  he  had  witnessed  in 
Paris  with  the  electro-magnet,  a  recital 
which  made  such  an  impression  upon  one 
of  his  auditors  that  he  walked  the  deck 
the  whole  night.  Professor  Morse's  own 
statement  was  that  he  gained  his  knowledge 

273 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOETKEES 

of  the  working  of  the  electro-magnet  while 
attending  the  lectures  of  Doctor  J.  Free- 
man Dana,  then  professor  of  chemistry  in 
the  University  of  New  York,  lectures 
which  were  delivered  before  the  New  York 
Atheneum. 

"  I  witnessed,"  says  Morse,  "  the  effects 
of  the  conjunctive  wires  in  the  different 
forms  described  by  him  in  his  lectures, 
and  exhibited  to  his  audience.  The  electro- 
magnet was  put  in  action  by  an  intense 
battery ;  it  was  made  to  sustain  the  weight 
of  its  armature,  when  the  conjunctive  wire 
was  connected  with  the  poles  of  the  battery, 
or  the  circuit  was  closed ;  and  it  was  made 
to  i  drop  its  load  '  upon  opening  the  cir- 
cuit." 

Yet  after  the  inventor  had  made  his  dis- 
covery he  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in 
getting  a  chance  to  demonstrate  its  worth. 
Heartsick  with  despondency,  and  with  his 
274 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

means  utterly  exhausted,  he  finally  applied 
to  the  Twenty-seventh  Congress  for  aid  to 
put  his  invention  to  the  test  of  practical 
illustration,  and  his  petition  was  carried 
through  with  a  majority  of  only  two  votes ! 
These  two  votes  to  the  good  were  enough, 
however,  to  save  the  wonderful  discovery, 
perhaps  from  present  obscurity,  and  with 
the  thirty  thousand  dollars  appropriated  by 
Congress  Morse  stretched  his  first  wires 
from  Washington  to  Baltimore  —  wires,  it 
will  be  noted,  because  the  principle  of  the 
ground  circuit  was  not  then  known,  and 
only  later  discovered  by  accident.  So  that 
a  wire  to  go  and  another  to  return  between 
the  cities  was  deemed  necessary  by  Morse 
to  complete  his  first  circuit.  The  first  wire 
was  of  copper. 

The  first  message,  now  in  the  custody  of 
the  Connecticut  Historical  Society,  was 
dictated  by  Miss  Annie  G.  Ellsworth,  and 

275 


OLD  XEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTBEES 

the  words  of  it  were  "  What  hath  God 
wrought  ? "  The  telegraph  was  at  first 
regarded  with  superstitious  dread  in  some 
sections  of  the  country.  In  a  Southern 
State  a  drought  was  attributed  to  its  occult 
influences,  and  the  people,  infatuated  with 
the  idea,  levelled  the  wires  to  the  ground. 
And  so  common  was  it  for  the  Indians  to 
knock  off  the  insulators  with  their  rifles 
in  order  to  gratify  their  curiosity  in  regard 
to  the  "  singing  cord/'  that  it  was  at  first 
extremely  difficult  to  keep  the  lines  in 
repair  along  the  Pacific  Railway. 

To  the  man  who  had  been  so  poor  that  he 
had  had  a  very  great  struggle  to  provide 
bread  for  his  three  motherless  children, 
came  now  success.  The  impecunious  artist 
was  liberally  rewarded  for  his  clever  in- 
vention, and  in  1847  he  married  for  his 
second  wife  Miss  Sarah  E.  Griswold,  of 
Poughkeepsie,  the  daughter  of  his  cousin. 
276 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

She  was  twenty-five  when  they  were  mar- 
ried, and  he  fifty-six,  but  they  lived  very 
happily  together  on  the  two-hundred  acre 
farm  he  had  bought  near  Poughkeepsie, 
and  it  was  there  that  he  died  at  the  age 
of  seventy-two,  full  of  honours  as  an  in- 
ventor, and  loving  art  to  the  end. 

Even  after  he  became  a  great  man,  Pro- 
fessor Morse,  it  is  interesting  to  learn, 
cherished  his  fondness  for  the  house  in 
which  he  was  born,  and  one  of  his  last 
visits  to  Charlestown  was  on  the  occasion 
when  he  took  his  young  daughter  to  see 
the  old  place.  And  that  same  day,  one  is 
a  bit  amused  to  note,  he  took  her  also 
to  the  old  parsonage,  then  still  standing, 
in  what  is  now  Harvard  Street,  between 
the  city  hall  and  the  church  —  and  there 
pointed  out  to  her  with  pride  some  rude 
sketches  he  had  made  on  the  wall  of  his 
sleeping-room  when  still  a  boy.  So,  though 

277 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

it  is  as  an  inventor  we  remember  and 
honour  Samuel  Finley  Breese  Morse  to- 
day, it  was  as  a  painter  that  he  wished 
first,  last,  and  above  all  to  be  famous.  But 
in  the  realm  of  the  talents  as  elsewhere 
man  proposes  and  God  disposes. 


278 


WHEKE    THE    "  BEOTHEKS    AND 
SISTERS"    MET 

Tt  TO  single  house  in  all  Massachusetts 
/  ^  has  survived  so  many  of  the  vicis- 
situdes of  fickle  fortune  and  car- 
ried the  traditions  of  a  glorious  past  up 
into  the  realities  of  a  prosperous  and  useful 
present  more  successfully  than  has  Fay 
House,  the  present  home  of  Radcliffe  Col- 
lege, Cambridge.  The  central  portion  of 
the  Fay  House  of  to-day  dates  back  nearly 
a  hundred  years,  and  was  built  by 
Nathaniel  Ireland,  a  prosperous  merchant 
of  Boston.  It  was  indeed  a  mansion  to 
make  farmer-folk  stare  when,  with  its 

279 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

tower-like  bays,  running  from  ground  to 
roof,  it  was,  in  1806,  erected  on  the  high- 
road to  Watertown,  the  first  brick  house 
in  the  vicinity. 

To  Mr.  Ireland  did  not  come  the  good 
fortune  of  living  in  the  fine  dwelling  his 
ambition  had  designed.  A  ship-blacksmith 
by  trade,  his  prospects  were  ruined  by  the 
Jefferson  Embargo,  and  he  was  obliged  to 
leave  the  work  of  construction  on  his  house 
unfinished  and  allow  the  place  to  pass, 
heavily  mortgaged,  into  the  hands  of 
others.  But  the  house  itself  and  our  story 
concerning  it  gained  by  Mr.  Ireland's  loss, 
for  it  now  became  the  property  of  Doctor 
Joseph  McKean  (a  famous  Harvard  in- 
structor), and  the  rendezvous  of  that  pro- 
fessor's college  associates  and  of  the  numer- 
ous friends  of  his  young  family.  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  was  among  those  who 

280 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

spent  many  a  social  evening  here  with  the 
McKeans. 

The  next  name  of  importance  to  be  con- 
nected with  Fay  House  was  that  of 
Edward  Everett,  who  lived  here  for  a  time. 
Later  Sophia  Willard  Dana,  granddaugh- 
ter of  Chief  Justice  Dana,  our  first  minis- 
ter to  Russia,  kept  a  boarding  and  day 
school  for  young  ladies  in  the  house. 
Among  her  pupils  were  the  sisters  of 
James  Russell  Lowell,  Mary  Channing,  the 
first  wife  of  Colonel  Thomas  Wentworth 
Higginson,  and  members  of  the  Higgin- 
son, Parkman,  and  Tuckerman  families. 
Lowell  himself,  and  Edmund  Dana,  at- 
tended here  for  a  term  as  a  special  privi- 
lege. Sophia  Dana  was  married  in  the 
house,  August  22,  1827,  by  the  father  of 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  to  Mr.  George 
Ripley,  with  whom  she  afterward  took  an 
active  part  in  the  Brook  Farm  Colony,  of 

281 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

which  we  are  to  hear  again  a  bit  later  in 
this  series.  After  Miss  Dana's  marriage, 
her  school  was  carried  on  largely  by  Miss 
Elizabeth  McKean  —  the  daughter  of  the 
Doctor  Joseph  McKean  already  referred 
to  —  a  young  woman  who  soon  became  the 
wife  of  Doctor  Joseph  Worcester,  the  com- 
piler of  the  dictionary. 

Delightful  reminiscences  of  Fay  House 
have  been  furnished  us  by  Thomas  Went- 
worth  Higginson,  who,  as  a  boy,  was  often 
in  and  out  of  the  place,  visiting  his  aunt, 
Mrs.  Channing,  who  lived  here  with  her 
son,  William  Henry  Channing,  the  well- 
known  anti-slavery  orator.  Here  Higgin- 
son,  as  a  youth,  used  to  listen  with  keenest 
pleasure,  to  the  singing  of  his  cousin,  Lucy 
Channing,  especially  when  the  song  she 
chose  was,  "  The  Mistletoe  Hung  on  the 
Castle  Wall,"  the  story  of  a  bride  shut 
up  in  a  chest.  "  I  used  firmly  to  believe," 
282 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

the  genial  colonel  confessed  to  the  Radcliffe 
girls,  in  reviving  for  them  his  memories 
of  the  house,  "  that  there  was  a  bride  shut 
up  in  the  walls  of  this  house  —  and  there 
may  be  to-day,  for  all  I  know." 

For  fifty  years  after  June,  1835,  the 
house  was  in  the  possession  of  Judge  P.  P. 
Fay's  family.  The  surroundings  were  still 
country-like.  Cambridge  Common  was  as 
yet  only  a  treeless  pasture,  and  the  house 
had  not  been  materially  changed  from  its 
original  shape  and  plan.  Judge  Fay  was 
a  jolly  gentleman  of  the  old  school.  A 
judge  of  probate  for  a  dozen  years,  an 
overseer  of  Harvard  College,  and  a  pillar 
of  Christ  Church,  he  was  withal  fond  of 
a  well-turned  story  and  a  lover  of  good 
hunting,  as  well  as  much  given  to  hospi- 
tality. Miss  Maria  Denny  Fay,  whose 
memory  is  now  perpetuated  in  a  Radcliffe 
scholarship,  was  the  sixth  of  Judge  Fay's 

283 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOETEEES 

seven  children,  and  the  one  who  finally 
became  both  mistress  and  owner  of  the 
estate.  A  girl  of  fourteen  when  her  father 
bought  the  house,  she  was  at  the  time  re- 
ceiving her  young-lady  education  at  the 
Convent  of  St.  Ursula,  where,  in  the  vine- 
covered,  red-brick  convent  on  the  summit 
of  Charlestown,  she  learned,  under  the 
guidance  of  the  nuns,  to  sing,  play  the 
piano,  the  harp,  and  the  guitar,  to  speak 
French,  and  read  Spanish  and  Italian. 
But  her  life  on  Mt.  Benedict  was  suddenly 
terminated  when  the  convent  was  burned. 
So  she  entered  earlier  than  would  other- 
wise have  been  the  case  upon  the  varied 
interests  of  her  new  and  beautiful  home. 
Here,  in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  we  find 
her  presiding,  a  gracious  and  lovely 
maiden,  of  whom  the  venerable  Colonel 
Higginson  has  said :  "  I  have  never,  in 
looking  back,  felt  more  grateful  to  any 
284 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

one  than  to  this  charming  girl  of  twenty, 
who  consented  to  be  a  neighbour  to  me,  an 
awkward  boy  of  seventeen,  to  attract  me  in 
a  manner  from  myself  and  make  me  avail- 
able to  other  people." 

Very  happy  times  were  those  which  the 
young  Went  worth  Higginson,  then  a  col- 
lege boy,  living  with  his  mother  at 
Vaughan  House,  was  privileged  to  share 
with  Maria  Fay  and  her  friends.  Who  of 
us  does  not  envy  him  the  memory  of  that 
Christmas  party  in  1841,  when  there  were 
gathered  in  Fay  House,  among  others, 
Maria  White,  Lowell's  beautiful  fiancee; 
Levi  Thaxter,  afterward  the  husband  of 
Celia  Thaxter ;  Leverett  Saltonstall,  Mary 
Story  and  William  Story,  the  sculptors? 
And  how  pleasant  it  must  have  been  to  join 
in  the  famous  charades  of  that  circle  of 
talented  young  people,  to  partake  of  re- 
freshments in  the  quaint  dining-room,  and 

285 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

dance  a  Virginia  reel  and  galop  in  the 
beautiful  oval  parlour  which  then,  as  to- 
day, expressed  ideally  the  acme  of  charm- 
ing hospitality !  What  tales  this  same  par- 
lour might  relate!  How  enchantingly  it 
might  tell,  if  it  could  speak,  of  the  graceful 
Maria  White,  who,  seated  in  the  deep  win- 
dow, must  have  made  an  exquisite  picture 
in  her  white  gown,  with  her  beautiful  face 
shining  in  the  moonlight  while  she  re- 
peated, in  her  soft  voice,  one  of  her  own 
ballads,  written  for  the  "  Brothers  and 
Sisters,"  as  this  group  of  young  people 
was  called. 

Of  a  more  distinctly  academic  cast  were 
some  of  the  companies  later  assembled  in 
this  same  room  —  Judge  Story,  Doctor 
Beck,  President  Felton,  Professors  Pierce, 
Lane,  Child,  and  Lowell,  with  maybe 
Longfellow,  listening  to  one  of  his  own 
songs,  or  that  strange  figure,  Professor 
286 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

Evangelinus  Apostolides  Sophocles,  oddly 
ill  at  ease  in  his  suit  of  dingy  black.  In 
his  younger  days  he  had  been  both  pirate 
and  priest,  and  he  retained,  as  professor, 
some  of  his  early  habits  —  seldom  being 
seated  while  he  talked,  and  leaning  against 
the  door,  shaking  and  fumbling  his  college 
keys  as  the  monks  shake  their  rosaries. 
Mr.  Arthur  Oilman  has  related  in  a  charm- 
ing article  on  Fay  House,  written  for 
the  Harvard  Graduates  Magazine  (from 
which,  as  from  Miss  Norris's  sketch  of  the 
old  place,  printed  in  a  recent  number  of 
the  Radcliffe  Magazine,  many  of  the  inci- 
dents here  given  are  drawn),  that  Professor 
Sophocles  was  allowed  by  Miss  Fay  to  keep 
some  hens  on  the  estate,  pets  which  he  had 
an  odd  habit  of  naming  after  his  friends. 
When,  therefore,  some  accomplishment 
striking  and  praiseworthy  in  a  hen  was 
related  in  company  as  peculiar  to  one  or 

287 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

another  of  them,  the  professor  innocently 
calling  his  animals  by  the  name  he  had 
borrowed,  the  effect  was  apt  to  be  start- 
ling. 

During  the  latter  part  of  Miss  Fay's 
long  tenancy  of  this  house,  she  had  with 
her  her  elder  sister,  the  handsome  Mrs. 
Greenough,  a  woman  who  had  been  so 
famous  a  beauty  in  her  youth  that,  on  the 
occasion  of  her  wedding,  Harvard  students 
thronged  the  aisles  and  climbed  the  pews 
of  old  Christ  Church  to  see  her.  The  wed- 
ding receptions  of  Mrs.  Greenough's  daugh- 
ter and  granddaughter  were  held,  too,  in 
Fay  House.  This  latter  girl  was  the  fas- 
cinating and  talented  Lily  Greenough,  who 
was  later  a  favourite  at  the  court  of  Napo- 
leon and  Eugenie,  and  who,  after  the  death 
of  her  first  husband,  Mr.  Charles  Moulton, 
was  married  in  this  house  to  Monsieur 
De  Hegermann  Lindencrone,  at  that  time 
288 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

Danish  Minister  to  the  United  States,  and 
now  minister  at  Paris.  Her  daughter, 
Suzanne  Moulton,  who  has  left  her  name 
scratched  with  a  diamond  on  one  of  the 
Fay  House  windows,  is  now  the  Countess 
Suzanne  Raben-Levetzan  of  Nystel,  Den- 
mark. 

In  connection  with  the  Fays'  life  in  this 
house  occurred  one  thing  which  will  par- 
ticularly send  the  building  down  into  pos- 
terity, and  will  link  for  all  time  Radcliffe 
and  Harvard  traditions.  For  it  was  in 
the  upper  corner  room,  nearest  the  Wash- 
ington Elm,  that  Doctor  Samuel  Oilman, 
Judge  Fay's  brother-in-law,  wrote  "  Fair 
Harvard,"  while  a  guest  in  this  hospitable 
home,  during  the  second  centennial  cele- 
bration of  the  college  on  the  Charles.  Rad- 
cliffe girls  often  seem  a  bit  triumphant  as 
they  point  out  to  visitors  this  room  and 
its  facsimile  copy  of  the  famous  song.  Yet 

289 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

they  have  plenty  of  pleasant  things  of  their 
own  to  remember. 

Just  one  of  these,  taken  at  random  from 
among  the  present  writer's  own  memories 
of  pretty  happenings  at  Fay  House,  will 
serve :  During  Duse's  last  tour  in  this  coun- 
try, the  famous  actress  came  out  one  after- 
noon, as  many  a  famous  personage  does, 
to  drink  a  cup  of  tea  with  Mrs.  Agassiz 
in  the  stately  old  parlour,  where  Mrs. 
Whitman's  famous  portrait  of  the  presi- 
dent of  Radcliffe  College  vies  in  attract- 
iveness with  the  living  reality  graciously 
presiding  over  the  Wednesday  afternoon 
teacups.  As  it  happened,  there  was  a  scant 
attendance  at  the  tea  on  this  day  of  Duse's 
visit.  She  had  not  been  expected,  and  so 
it  fell  out  that  some  two  or  three  girls  who 
could  speak  French  or  Italian  were  priv- 
ileged to  do  the  honours  of  the  occasion 
to  the  great  actress  whom  they  had  long 
290 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

worshipped  from  afar.  Duse  was  in  one 
of  her  most  charming  moods,  and  she 
listened  with  the  greatest  attention  to  her 
young  hostesses'  laboured  explanations 
concerning  the  college  and  its  ancient 
home. 

The  best  of  it  all,  from  the  enthusiastic 
girl-students7  point  of  view,  was,  however, 
in  the  dark-eyed  Italienne's  mode  of  say- 
ing farewell.  As  she  entered  her  carriage 
-  to  which  she  had  been  escorted  by  this 
little  group  —  she  took  from  her  belt  a 
beautiful  bouquet  of  roses,  camellias,  and 
violets.  And  as  the  smart  coachman 
flicked  the  impatient  horses  with  his  whip, 
Duse  threw  the  girls  the  precious  flowers. 
Those  who  caught  a  camellia  felt,  of 
course,  especially  delighted,  for  it  was  as 
the  Dame  aux  Camellias  that  Duse  had 
been  winning  for  weeks  the  plaudits  of  ad- 
miring Boston.  My  own  share  of  the 

291 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

largesse  consisted  of  a  few  fresh,  sweet 
violets,  which  I  still  have  tucked  away 
somewhere,  together  with  one  of  the  great 
actress's  photographs  that  bears  the  date 
of  the  pleasant  afternoon  hour  passed  with 
her  in  the  parlour  where  the  "  Brothers 
and  Sisters  "  met 


292 


THE   BEOOK   EAEMEES 


of  the  weddings  noted  in  our 
Fay  House  chapter  was  that  of 
Sophia  Dana  to  George  Eipley,  an 
event  which  was  celebrated  August  22, 
1827,  in  the  stately  parlour  of  the  Cam- 
bridge mansion,  the  ceremony  being  per- 
formed by  the  father  of  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes.  The  time  between  the  date  of 
their  marriage  and  the  year  1840,  when 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Eipley  "  discovered  "  the 
milk-farm  in  West  Eoxbury,  which  was 
afterward  to  be  developed  through  their 
efforts  into  the  most  remarkable  socialistic 
experiment  America  has  ever  known, 

293 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

represented  for  the  young  people  joined 
together  in  what  is  now  the  home  of  Kad- 
cliffe  College  some  dozen  years  of  quiet 
parsonage  life  in  Boston. 

The  later  years  of  George  Ripley's  life 
held  for  him  a  series  of  disappointments 
before  which  his  courage  and  ideals  never 
failed.  When  the  young  student  left  the 
Harvard  Divinity  School,  he  was  appointed 
minister  over  a  Unitarian  parish  which 
was  gathered  for  him  at  the  corner  of 
Pearl  and  Purchase  Streets,  Boston.  Here 
his  ministrations  went  faithfully  on,  but 
inasmuch  as  his  parishioners  failed  to  take 
any  deep  interest  in  the  social  questions 
which  seemed  to  him  of  most  vital  concern, 
he  sent  them,  in  the  October  of  1840,  a 
letter  of  resignation,  which  they  duly  ac- 
cepted, thus  leaving  Ripley  free  to  enter 
upon  the  experiment  so  dear  to  him. 

The  Ripleys,  as  has  been  said,  had  al- 
294 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

ready  discovered  Brook  Farm,  a  pleasant 
place,  varied  in  contour,  with  pine  woods 
close  at  hand,  the  Charles  River  within 
easy  distance,  and  plenty  of  land  - 
whether  of  a  sort  to  produce  paying  crops 
or  not  they  were  later  to  learn.  That  win- 
ter Ripley  wrote  to  Emerson :  "  We  pro- 
pose to  take  a  small  tract  of  land,  which, 
under  skilful  husbandry,  uniting  the  gar- 
den and  the  farm,  will  be  adequate  to  the 
subsistence  of  the  families ;  and  to  connect 
with  this  a  school  or  college  in  which  the 
most  complete  instruction  shall  be  given, 
from  the  first  rudiments  to  the  highest 
culture."  Ripley  himself  assumed  the 
responsibility  for  the  management  and 
success  of  the  undertaking,  and  about  the 
middle  of  April,  1841,  he  took  possession 
with  his  wife  and  sister  and  some  fifteen 
others,  including  Hawthorne,  of  the  f  arm- 

295 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

house,  which,  with  a  large  barn,  was 
already  on  the  estate. 

The  first  six  months  were  spent  in  "  get- 
ting started,"  especially  in  the  matter  of 
the  school,  of  which  Mrs.  Ripley  was 
largely  in  charge,  and  it  was  not  until 
early  fall  —  September  29  —  that  the 
Brook  Farm  Institute  of  Agriculture  and 
Education  was  organised  as  a  kind  of  joint 
stock  company,  not  incorporated. 

A  seeker  after  country  quiet  and  beauty 
might  easily  be  as  much  attracted  to-day 
by  the  undulating  acres  of  Brook  Farm 
as  were  those  who  sought  it  sixty  years 
ago  as  a  refuge  from  social  discouragement. 
The  brook  still  babbles  cheerily  as  it 
threads  its  way  through  the  meadows,  and 
there  are  still  pleasant  pastures  and  shady 
groves  on  the  large  estate.  The  only  one 
of  the  community  buildings  which  is  still 
standing,  however,  is  that  now  known  as 
296 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

the  Martin  Luther  Orphan  Home.  This 
house  was  built  at  the  very  start  of  the 
community  life  by  Mrs.  A.  G.  Alford,  one 
of  the  members  of  the  colony. 

The  building  was  in  the  form  of  a  Mal- 
tese cross  with  four  gables,  the  central  space 
being  taken  by  the  staircase.  It  contained 
only  about  half  a  dozen  rooms,  and  proba- 
bly could  not  have  accommodated  more 
than  that  number  of  residents.  It  is  said 
to  have  been  the  prettiest  and  best  fur- 
nished house  on  the  place,  but  an  examina- 
tion of  its  simple  construction  will  confirm 
the  memory  of  one  of  its  occupants,  who  re- 
marked that  contact  with  nature  was  here 
always  admirably  close  and  unaffected. 
From  the  rough  dwelling,  which  resembled 
an  inexpensive  beach  cottage,  to  out-doors 
was  hardly  a  transition,  it  is  chronicled, 
and  at  all  seasons  the  external  and  internal 
temperatures  closely  corresponded.  Until 

297 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

lately  the  cottage  wore  its  original  dark- 
brown  colour ;  and  it  is  still  the  best  visible 
remnant  of  the  early  days,  and  gives  a 
pleasant  impression  of  what  the  daily  life 
of  the  association  must  have  been. 

Gay  and  happy  indeed  were  the  dwellers 
in  this  community  during  the  early  stages 
of  its  development.  Kipley's  theory  of  the 
wholesomeness  of  combined  manual  and 
intellectual  work  ruled  everywhere.  He 
himself  donned  the  farmer's  blouse,  the 
wide  straw  hat,  and  the  high  boots  in  which 
he  has  been  pictured  at  Brook  Farm ;  and 
whether  he  cleaned  stables,  milked  cows, 
carried  vegetables  to  market,  or  taught 
philosophy  and  discussed  religion,  he  was 
unfailingly  cheerful  and  inspiring. 

Mrs.  Ripley  was  in  complete  accord  with 

her  husband  on  all  vital  questions,  and  as 

the  chief  of  the  Wash-Koom  Group  worked 

blithely  eight  or  ten  hours  a  day.  Whether 

298 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

this  devotion  to  her  husband's  ideals  grew 
out  of  her  love  for  him,  or  whether  she 
was  really  persuaded  of  the  truth  of  his 
theory,  does  not  appear.  In  later  life  it  is 
interesting  to  learn  that  she  sought  in  the 
Church  of  Rome  the  comfort  which  Rip- 
ley's  transcendentalism  was  not  able  to 
afford  her.  When  she  died  in  1859  she  had 
held  the  faith  of  Rome  for  nearly  a  dozen 
years,  and,  curiously  enough,  was  buried 
as  a  Catholic  from  that  very  building  in 
which  her  husband  had  preached  as  a 
Unitarian  early  in  their  married  life,  the 
church  having  in  the  interim  been  pur- 
chased by  the  Catholics.  With  just  one 
glimpse  of  the  later  Ripley  himself,  we 
must  leave  this  interesting  couple.  In 
1866,  when,  armed  with  a  letter  of  intro- 
duction from  Emerson,  the  original  Brook 
Earmer  sought  Carlyle  (who  had  once  de- 
scribed him  as  "  a  Socinian  minister  who 

299 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

had  left  his  pulpit  to  reform  the  world 
by  cultivating  onions"),  and  Carlyle 
greeted  him  with  a  long  and  violent  tirade 
against  our  government,  Ripley  sat  quietly 
through  it  all,  but  when  the  sage  of  Chelsea 
paused  for  breath,  calmly  rose  and  left  the 
house,  saying  no  word  of  remonstrance. 

It  is,  of  course,  however,  in  Hawthorne 
and  his  descriptions  in  the  "  Blithedale 
Romance  "  of  the  life  at  Brook  Farm  that 
the  principal  interest  of  most  readers  cen- 
tres. This  work  has  come  to  be  regarded 
as  the  epic  of  the  community,  and  it  is 
now  generally  conceded  that  Hawthorne 
was  in  this  novel  far  more  of  a  realist 
than  was  at  first  admitted.  He  did  not 
avoid  the  impulse  to  tell  the  happenings 
of  life  at  the  farm  pretty  nearly  as  he 
found  them,  and  substantial  as  the  charac- 
ters may  or  may  not  be,  the  daily  life  and 
doings,  the  scenery,  the  surroundings,  and 
300 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

even  trivial  details  are  presented  with  a 
well-nigh  faultless  accuracy. 

The  characters,  as  I  have  said,  are  not 
easily  traceable,  but  even  in  this  respect 
Hawthorne  was  something  of  a  photog- 
rapher. Zenobia  seems  a  blend  of  Mar- 
garet Fuller  and  of  Mrs.  Barlow,  who  as 
Miss  Penniman  was  once  a  famous  Brook- 
line  beauty  of  lively  and  attractive  dispo- 
sition. In  the  strongest  and  most  repel- 
laiit  character  of  the  novel,  Hollingsworth, 
Hawthorne  seems  to  have  incorporated 
something  of  the  fierce  earnestness  of 
Brownson  and  the  pathetic  zeal  of  Kipley. 
And  those  who  best  know  Brook  Farm  are 
able  to  find  in  the  book  reflections  of  other 
well-known  members  of  the  community. 
For  the  actual  life  of  the  place,  however, 
readers  cannot  do  better  than  peruse 
Lindsay  Swift's  recent  delightful  work, 

301 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

"  Brook  Earm,  Its  Members,  Scholars,  and 
Visitors." 

There  was,  we  learn  here,  a  charming 
happy-go-luckiness  about  the  whole  life. 
Partly  from  necessity,  partly  from  choice, 
the  young  people  used  to  sit  on  the  stairs 
and  on  the  floor  during  the  evening  enter- 
tainments. Dishes  were  washed  and  wiped 
to  the  tune  of  "  Oh,  Canaan,  Bright  Ca- 
naan/7 or  some  other  song  of  the  time. 
When  about  their  work  the  women  wore 
short  skirts  with  knickerbockers;  the 
water-cure  and  the  starving-cure  both  re- 
ceived due  attention  at  the  hands  of  some 
of  the  members  of  the  household ;  at  table 
the  customary  formula  was,  "  Is  the  butter 
within  the  sphere  of  your  influence  ? " 
And  very  often  the  day's  work  ended  in  a 
dance,  a  walk  to  Eliot's  Pulpit,  or  a  moon- 
light hour  on  the  Charles ! 

During  the  earlier  years  the  men,  who 
302 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

were  in  excess  of  the  young  women  in 
point  of  numbers,  helped  very  largely  in 
the  household  labours.  George  William 
Curtis  occasionally  trimmed  lamps,  Charles 
Dana,  who  afterward  founded  the  New 
York  Sun,  organised  a  band  of  griddle- 
cake  servitors  composed  of  "  four  of  the 
most  elegant  youths  of  the  Community !  " 
One  legend,  which  has  the  air  of  prob- 
ability, records  that  a  student  confessed  his 
passion  while  helping  his  sweetheart  at 
the  sink.  Of  love  there  was  indeed  not  a 
little  at  Brook  Farm.  Cupid  is  said  to 
have  made  much  havoc  in  the  Community, 
and  though  very  little  mismating  is  to  be 
traced  to  the  intimacy  of  the  life  there, 
fourteen  marriages  have  been  attributed  to 
friendships  begun  at  Brook  Farm,  and 
there  was  even  one  wedding  there,  that  of 
John  Orvis  to  John  Dwight's  sister, 
Marianne.  At  this  simple  ceremony  Will- 

303 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

iam  Henry  Charming  was  the  minister, 
and  John  Dwight  made  a  speech  of  exactly 
five  words. 

Starting  with  about  fifteen  persons,  the 
numbers  at  the  farm  increased  rapidly, 
though  never  above  one  hundred  and  twenty 
people  were  there  at  a  time.  It  is  estimated, 
however,  that  about  two  hundred  individ- 
uals were  connected  with  the  Community 
from  first  to  last.  Of  these  all  the  well- 
known  ones  are  now  dead,  unless,  indeed, 
one  is  to  count  among  the  "  Farmers " 
Mrs.  Abby  Morton  Diaz,  who  as  a  very 
young  girl  was  a  teacher  in  the  infant 
department  of  the  school. 

Yet  though  the  Farmers  have  almost 
all  passed  beyond,  delicious  anecdotes 
about  them  are  all  the  time  coming  to  light. 
There  is  one  story  of  "Sam"  Lamed  which 
is  almost  too  good  to  be  true.  Larned,  it 
is  said,  steadily  refused  to  drink  milk  on 
304 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTEEES 

the  ground  that  his  relations  with  the  cow 
did  not  justify  him  in  drawing  on  her 
reserves,  and  when  it  was  pointed  out  to 
him  that  he  ought  on  the  same  principle 
to  abandon  shoes,  he  is  said  to  have  made 
a  serious  attempt  to  discover  some  more 
moral  type  of  footwear. 

And  then  there  is  another  good  story 
of  an  instance  when  Brook  Farm  hos- 
pitality had  fatal  results.  An  Irish 
baronet,  Sir  John  Caldwell,  fifth  of  that 
title,  and  treasurer-general  at  Canada, 
after  supping  with  the  Community  on  its 
greatest  delicacy,  pork  and  beans,  returned 
to  the  now  departed  Tremont  House  in 
Boston,  and  died  suddenly  of  apoplexy ! 

This  baronet's  son  was  wont  later  to 
refer  to  the  early  members  of  the  Commu- 
nity as  "  extinct  volcanoes  of  transcen- 
dental nonsense  and  humbuggery."  But 
no  witty  sallies  of  this  sort  are  able  to 

305 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

lessen  in  the  popular  mind  the  reverence 
with  which  this  Brook  Farm  essay  in 
idealism  must  ever  be  held.  For  this 
Community,  when  all  is  said,  remains  the 
most  successful  and  the  most  interesting 
failure  the  world  has  ever  known. 


306 


MARGARET  FULLER:   MARCHESA 
D'OSSOLI 


account  of  Brook  Farm  which 
should  neglect  to  dwell  upon  the 
part  played  in  the  community  life 
by  Margaret  Fuller,  Marchesa  d'Ossoli, 
would  be  almost  like  the  play  of  "  Ham- 
let "  with  the  Prince  of  Denmark  left  out. 
For  although  Margaret  Fuller  never  lived 
at  Brook  Farm  —  was,  indeed,  only  an 
occasional  visitor  there  —  her  influence 
pervaded  the  place,  and,  as  we  feel  from 
reading  the  "  Blithedale  Romance,"  she 
was  really,  whether  absent  or  present,  the 
strongest  personality  connected  with  the 
experiment. 

307 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

Hawthorne's  first  bucolic  experience  was 
with  the  famous  "  transcendental  heifer  " 
mistakenly  said  to  have  been  the  property 
of  Margaret  Fuller.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  beast  had  been  named  after  Cambridge's 
most  intellectual  woman,  by  Ripley,  who 
had  a  whimsical  fashion  of  thus  honouring 
his  friends.  According  to  Hawthorne,  the 
name  in  this  case  was  not  inapt,  for  the 
cow  was  so  recalcitrant  and  anti-social  that 
it  was  finally  sent  to  Coventry  by  the  more 
docile  kine,  always  to  be  counted  on  for 
moderate  conservatism. 

This  cow's  would-be-tamer,  not  wishing 
to  be  unjust,  refers  to  this  heifer  as  having 
"  a  very  intelligent  face  "  and  "  a  reflective 
cast  of  character."  He  certainly  paid  Mar- 
garet Fuller  herself  no  such  tribute,  but 
thus  early  in  his  Brook  Farm  experience 
let  appear  his  thinly  veiled  contempt  for 
the  high  priestess  of  transcendentalism. 
308 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

Even  earlier  his  antagonism  toward  this 
eminent  woman  was  strong,  if  it  was  not 
frank,  for  he  wrote :  "I  was  invited  to 
dine  at  Mr.  Bancroft's  yesterday  with  Miss 
Margaret  Fuller,  but  Providence  had  given 
me  some  business  to  do  for  which  I  was 
very  thankful." 

The  unlovely  side  of  Margaret  Fuller 
must  have  made  a  very  deep  impression 
upon  Hawthorne.  Gentle  as  the  great  ro- 
mancer undoubtedly  was  by  birth  and 
training,  he  has  certainly  been  very  harsh 
in  writing,  both  in  his  note-book  and  in  his 
story  of  Brook  Farm,  of  the  woman  we  rec- 
ognise in  Zenobia.  One  of  the  most  inter- 
esting literary  wars  ever  carried  on  in  this 
vicinity,  indeed,  was  that  which  was  waged 
here  some  fifteen  years  ago  concerning 
Julian  Hawthorne's  revelations  of  his 
father's  private  opinion  of  the  Marchesa 
d'Ossoli.  The  remarks  in  question  oc- 

309 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOETKEES 

curred  in  the  great  Hawthorne's  "  Koman 
Journal,"  and  were  certainly  sufficiently 
scathing  to  call  for  such  warm  defence 
as  Margaret's  surviving  friends  hastened 
to  offer.  Hawthorne  said  among  other 
things : 

"  Margaret  Fuller  had  a  strong  and 
coarse  nature  which  she  had  done  her  ut- 
most to  refine,  with  infinite  pains ;  but,  of 
course,  it  could  be  only  superficially 
changed.  .  .  .  Margaret  has  not  left  in  the 
hearts  and  minds  of  those  who  knew  her 
any  deep  witness  of  her  integrity  and 
purity.  She  was  a  great  humbug  —  of 
course,  with  much  talent  and  moral  reality, 
or  else  she  could  never  have  been  so  great 
a  humbug.  .  .  .  Toward  the  last  there  ap- 
pears to  have  been  a  total  collapse  in  poor 
Margaret,  morally  and  intellectually; 
and  tragic  as  her  catastrophe  was,  Provi- 
dence was,  after  all,  kind  in  putting  her 
310 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

and  her  clownish  husband  and  their  child 
on  board  that  fated  ship.  .  .  .  On  the 
whole,  I  do  not  know  but  I  like  her 
the  better,  though,  because  she  proved  her- 
self a  very  woman  after  all,  and  fell  as  the 
meanest  of  her  sisters  might." 

The  latter  sentences  refer  to  Margaret's 
marriage  to  Ossoli,  a  man  some  ten  years 
the  junior  of  his  gifted  wife,  and  by  no 
means  her  intellectual  equal.  That  the 
marriage  was  a  strange  one  even  Mar- 
garet's most  ardent  friends  admit,  but  it 
was  none  the  less  exceedingly  human  and 
very  natural,  as  Hawthorne  implies,  for  a 
woman  of  thirty-seven,  whose  interests  had 
long  been  of  the  strictly  intellectual  kind, 
to  yield  herself  at  last  to  the  impulses  of 
an  affectionate  nature. 

But  we  are  getting  very  much  ahead  of 
our  story,  which  should  begin,  of  course, 
far  back  in  May,  1810,  when  there  was 

311 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

born,  at  the  corner  of  Eaton  and  Cherry 
Streets,  in  Cambridgeport,  a  tiny  daughter 
to  Timothy  Fuller  and  his  wife.  The 
dwelling  in  which  Margaret  first  saw  the 
light  still  stands,  and  is  easily  recognised 
by  the  three  elms  in  front,  planted  by  the 
proud  father  to  celebrate  the  advent  of  his 
first  child. 

The  garden  in  which  Margaret  and  her 
mother  delighted  has  long  since  vanished ; 
but  the  house  still  retains  a  certain  dignity, 
though  now  divided  into  three  separate 
tenements,  numbered  respectively  69,  72, 
and  75  Cherry  Street,  and  occupied  by  a 
rather  migratory  class  of  tenants.  The 
pillared  doorway  and  the  carved  wreaths 
above  it  still  give  an  old-fashioned  grace 
to  the  somewhat  dilapidated  house. 

The  class  with  which  Margaret  may  be 
said  to  have  danced  through  Harvard  Col- 
lege was  that  of  1829,  which  has  been 
812 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

made  by  the  wit  and  poetry  of  Holmes  the 
most  eminent  class  that  ever  left  Harvard. 
The  memory  of  one  lady  has  preserved  for 
us  a  picture  of  the  girl  Margaret  as  she 
appeared  at  a  ball  when  she  was  sixteen. 

"  She  had  a  very  plain  face,  half -shut 
eyes,  and  hair  curled  all  over  her  head; 
she  was  dressed  in  a  badly-cut,  low-neck 
pink  silk,  with  white  muslin  over  it;  and 
she  danced  quadrilles  very  awkwardly, 
being  withal  so  near-sighted  that  she  could 
hardly  see  her  partner." 

With  Holmes  she  was  not  especially  in- 
timate, we  learn,  though  they  had  been 
schoolmates ;  but  with  two  of  the  most  con- 
spicuous members  of  the  class  —  William 
Henry  Channing  and  James  Freeman 
Clarke  —  she  formed  a  lifelong  friendship, 
and  these  gentlemen  became  her  biog- 
raphers. 

Yet,  after  all,  the  most  important  part 

313 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

of  a  woman's  training  is  that  which  she 
obtains  from  her  own  sex,  and  of  this  Mar- 
garet Fuller  had  quite  her  share.  She  was 
one  of  those  maidens  who  form  passion- 
ate attachments  to  older  women,  and  there 
were  many  Cambridge  ladies  of  the  college 
circle  who  in  turn  won  her  ardent  loyalty. 

"  My  elder  sister,"  writes  Thomas  Went- 
worth  Higginson,  in  his  biography  of 
Margaret  Fuller,  "  can  well  remember  this 
studious,  self-conscious,  over-grown  girl  as 
sitting  at  my  mother's  feet,  covering  her 
hands  with  kisses,  and  treasuring  her  every 
word.  It  was  the  same  at  other  times  with 
other  women,  most  of  whom  were  too  much 
absorbed  in  their  own  duties  to  give  more 
than  a  passing  solicitude  to  this  rather 
odd  and  sometimes  inconvenient  adorer." 

The  side  of  Margaret  Fuller  to  which 
scant  attention  has  been  paid  heretofore 
is  this  ardently  affectionate  side,  and  this 
314 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

it  is  which  seems  to  account  for  what  has 
always  before  appeared  inexplicable  —  her 
romantic  marriage  to  the  young  Marchese 
d'Ossoli.  The  intellect  was  in  truth  only 
a  small  part  of  Margaret,  and  if  Haw- 
thorne had  improved,  as  he  might  have 
done,  his  opportunities  to  study  the  whole 
nature  of  the  woman,  he  would  not  have 
written  even  for  his  private  diary  the  harsh 
sentences  already  quoted.  One  has  only 
to  look  at  the  heroic  fashion  in  which, 
after  the  death  of  her  father,  Margaret 
took  up  the  task  of  educating  her  brothers 
and  sisters  to  feel  that  there  was  much 
besides  selfishness  in  this  woman's  make- 
up. 'Nor  can  one  believe  that  Emerson 
would  ever  have  cared  to  have  for  the 
friend  of  a  lifetime  a  woman  who  was 
a  "humbug."  Of  Margaret's  school- 
teaching,  conversation  classes  on  West 
Street,  Boston,  and  labours  on  the  Dial,  a 

315 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

transcendental  paper  in  which  Emerson 
was  deeply  interested,  there  is  not  space  to 
speak  here.  But  one  phase  of  her  work 
which  cannot  be  ignored  is  that  performed 
on  the  Tribune,  in  the  days  of  Horace 
Greeley. 

Greeley  brought  Boston's  high  priestess 
to  New  York  for  the  purpose  of  putting 
the  literary  criticism  of  the  Tribune  on  a 
higher  plane  than  any  American  newspa- 
per then  occupied,  as  well  as  that  she  might 
discuss  in  a  large  and  stimulating  way 
all  philanthropic  questions.  That  she  rose 
to  the  former  opportunity  her  enemies 
would  be  the  first  to  grant,  but  only  those 
who,  like  Margaret  herself,  believe  in  the 
sisterhood  of  women  could  freely  endorse 
her  attitude  on  philanthropic  subjects. 

Surely,  though,  it  could  not  have  been 
a  hard  woman  of  whom  Horace  Greeley 
wrote :  "If  she  had  been  born  to  large 
316 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTBEES 

fortune,  a  house  of  refuge  for  all  female 
outcasts  desiring  to  return  to  the  ways  of 
virtue  would  have  been  one  of  her  most 
cherished  and  first  realised  conceptions. 
She  once  attended,  with  other  noble  women, 
a  gathering  of  outcasts  of  their  sex,  and, 
being  asked  how  they  appeared  to  her, 
replied,  {  As  women  like  myself,  save  that 
they  are  victims  of  wrong  and  misfor- 
tune.' " 

While  labouring  for  the  Tribune.,  Mar- 
garet Fuller  was  all  the  time  saving  her 
money  for  the  trip  to  Europe,  which  had 
her  life  long  been  her  dream  of  felicity; 
and  at  last,  on  the  first  of  August,  1846, 
she  sailed  for  her  Elysian  Fields.  There, 
in  December,  1847,  she  was  secretly  mar- 
ried, and  in  September,  1848,  her  child 
was  born.  What  these  experiences  must 
have  meant  to  her  we  are  able  to  guess 
from  a  glimpse  into  her  private  journal 

317 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

in  which  she  had  many  years  before  re- 
corded her  profoundest  feeling  about  mar- 
riage and  motherhood. 

"  I  have  no  home.  No  one  loves  me. 
But  I  love  many  a  good  deal,  and  see 
some  way  into  their  eventful  beauty.  .  .  . 
I  am  myself  growing  better,  and  shall  by 
and  by  be  a  worthy  object  of  love,  one  that 
will  not  anywhere  disappoint  or  need 
forbearance.  ...  I  have  no  child,  and  the 
woman  in  me  has  so  craved  this  experience 
that  it  has  seemed  the  want  of  it  must 
paralyse  me.  .  .  ." 

The  circumstances  under  which  Mar- 
garet Fuller  and  her  husband  first  met  are 
full  of  interest.  Soon  after  Miss  Fuller's 
arrival  in  "Rome,  early  in  1847,  she  went 
one  day  to  hear  vespers  at  St.  Peter's,  and 
becoming  separated  from  her  friends  after 
the  service,  she  was  noted  as  she  examined 
the  church  by  a  young  man  of  gentlemanly 
318 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

address,  who,  perceiving  her  discomfort 
and  her  lack  of  Italian,  offered  his  services 
as  a  guide  in  her  endeavour  to  find  her 
companions. 

Not  seeing  them  anywhere,  the  young 
Marquis  d'Ossoli,  for  it  was  he,  accom- 
panied Miss  Fuller  home,  and  they  met 
once  or  twice  again  before  she  left  Rome 
for  the  summer.  The  following  season 
Miss  Fuller  had  an  apartment  in  Rome, 
and  she  often  received  among  her  guests 
this  young  patriot  with  whose  labours  in 
behalf  of  his  native  city  she  was  thoroughly 
in  sympathy. 

When  the  young  man  after  a  few  months 
declared  his  love,  Margaret  refused  to 
marry  him,  insisting  that  he  should  choose 
a  younger  woman  for  his  wife.  "  In  this 
way  it  rested  for  some  weeks/'  writes  Mrs. 
Story,  who  knew  them  both,  "  during  which 
we  saw  Ossoli  pale,  dejected,  and  unhappy. 

319 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

He  was  always  with  Margaret,  but  in  a 
sort  of  hopeless,  desperate  manner,  until 
at  length  he  convinced  her  of  his  love, 
and  she  married  him." 

Then  followed  the  wife's  service  in  the 
hospitals  while  Ossoli  was  in  the  army 
outside  the  city.  After  the  birth  of  their 
child,  Angelo,  the  happy  little  family  went 
to  Florence. 

The  letters  which  passed  between  the 
young  nobleman  and  the  wife  he  adored 
are  still  extant,  having  been  with  the  body 
of  her  beautiful  baby  the  only  things  of 
Margaret  Fuller's  saved  from  the  fatal 
wreck  in  which  she  and  her  two  loved  ones 
were  lost.  One  of  these  letters  will  be 
enough  to  show  the  tenderness  of  the  man : 

"  HOME,  21  October,  1848. 
"  MIA  CARA  :  —  I  learn  by  yours  of  the 
20th  that  you  have  received  the  ten  scudi, 
320 


OLD  JSTEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

and  it  makes  me  more  tranquil.  I  feel  also 
Mogliani's  indolence  in  not  coming  to  in- 
oculate our  child ;  bui,  my  love,  I  pray  you 
not  to  disturb  yourself  so  much,  and  not  to 
be  sad,  hoping  that  our  dear  love  will  be 
guarded  by  God,  and  will  be  free  from  all 
misfortunes.  He  will  keep  the  child  for 
us  and  give  us  the  means  to  sustain  him." 

In  answer  to  this  letter,  or  one  like  it, 
we  find  the  woman  whom  Hawthorne  had 
deemed  hard  and  cold  writing : 

"  Saturday  Evening, 

"  28  October,  1848. 

"...  It  rains  very  hard  every  day,  but 
to-day  I  have  been  more  quiet,  and  our 
darling  has  been  so  good,  I  have  taken 
so  much  pleasure  in  being  with  him.  When 
he  smiles  in  his  sleep,  how  it  makes  my 
heart  beat!  He  has  grown  fat  and  very 
fair,  and  begins  to  play  and  spring.  You 

321 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

will  have  much  pleasure   in  seeing  him 

again.     He  sends  you  many  kisses.  He 

bends  his  head  toward  me  when  he  asks 
a  kiss." 

Both  Madame  Ossoli  and  her  husband 
were  very  fearful  as  they  embarked  on  the 
fated  ship  which  was  to  take  them  to 
America.  He  had  been  cautioned  by  one 
who  had  told  his  fortune  when  a  boy  to 
beware  of  the  sea,  and  his  wife  had  long 
cherished  a  superstition  that  the  year  1850 
would  be  a  marked  epoch  in  her  life.  It 
is  remarkable  that  in  writing  to  a  friend 
of  her  fear  Madame  Ossoli  said :  "  I  pray 
that  if  we  are  lost  it  may  be  brief  anguish, 
and  Ossoli,  the  babe,  and  I  go  together." 

They  sailed  none  the  less,  May  17,  1850, 

on  the  Elizabeth,  a  new  merchant  vessel, 

which  set  out  from  Leghorn.     Misfortune 

soon   began.      The   captain   sickened   and 

322 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

died  of  malignant  smallpox,  and  after  his 
burial  at  sea  and  a  week's  detention  at 
Gibraltar,  little  Angelo  caught  the  dread 
disease  and  was  restored  with  difficulty. 
Yet  a  worse  fate  was  to  follow. 

At  noon  of  July  18,  while  they  were  off 
the  coast  of  New  Jersey,  there  was  a  gale, 
followed  by  a  hurricane,  which  dashed  the 
ship  on  that  Fire  Island  Beach  which  has 
engulfed  so  many  other  vessels.  Margaret 
Fuller  and  her  husband  were  drowned  with 
their  child.  The  bodies  of  the  parents 
were  never  recovered,  but  that  of  little 
Angelo  was  buried  in  a  seaman's  chest 
among  the  sandhills,  from  which  it  was 
later  disinterred  and  brought  to  our  own 
Mount  Auburn  by  the  relatives  who  had 
never  seen  the  baby  in  life. 

And  there  to-day  in  a  little  green  grave 
rests  the  child  of  this  great  woman's  great 
love. 

323 


THE  OLD  MANSE  AND  SOME  OF 
ITS   MOSSES 

"^  m    7HE    Old    Manse,"    writes    Haw- 
f         thorne,    in    his    charming    intro- 
duction   to    the    quaint    stories, 
"  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse/7  "  had  never 
been  profaned  by  a  lay  occupant  until  that 
memorable  summer  afternoon  when  I  en- 
tered   it    as    my    home.      A    priest    had 
built  it ;  a  priest  had  succeeded  to  it ;  other 
priestly  men  from  time  to  time  had  dwelt 
in  it ;    and  children  born  in  its  chambers 
had  grown  up  to  assume  the  priestly  char- 
acter.   It  is  awful  to  reflect  how  many  ser- 
mons must  have  been  written  here!  .   .   . 
Here   it    was,    too,    that    Emerson    wrote 
324 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

'  Nature ; 7  for  he  was  then  an  inhabitant 
of  the  Manse,  and  used  to  watch  the  Assyr- 
ian dawn  and  Paphian  sunset  and  moon- 
rise  from  the  summit  of  our  eastern  hill." 

Emerson's  residence  in  the  Old  Manse 
is  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  his 
grandfather  was  its  first  inhabitant.  And 
it  was  while  living  there  with  his  mother 
and  kindred,  before  his  second  marriage 
in  1835,  that  he  produced  "  Nature." 

It  is  to  the  parson,  the  Reverend  Will- 
iam Emerson,  that  we  owe  one  of  the  most 
valuable  Revolutionary  documents  that 
have  come  down  to  us.  Soon  after  the 
young  minister  came  to  the  old  Manse 
(which  was  then  the  New  Manse),  he  had 
occasion  to  make  in  his  almanac  this  stir- 
ring entry : 

"  This  morning,  between  one  and  two 
o'clock,  we  were  alarmed  by  the  ringing 
of  th/3  bell,  and  upon  examination  found 

325 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

that  the  troops,  to  the  number  of  eight 
hundred,  had  stole  their  march  from  Bos- 
ton, in  boats  and  barges,  from  the  bottom 
of  the  Common  over  to  a  point  in  Cam- 
bridge, near  to  Inman's  farm,  and  were 
at  Lexington  meeting-house  half  an  hour 
before  sunrise,  where  they  fired  upon  a 
body  of  our  men,  and  (as  we  afterward 
heard)  had  killed  several.  This  intelli- 
gence was  brought  us  first  by  Doctor  Sam- 
uel Prescott,  who  narrowly  escaped  the 
guard  that  were  sent  before  on  horses, 
purposely  to  prevent  all  posts  and  messen- 
gers from  giving  us  timely  information. 
He,  by  the  help  of  a  very  fleet  horse, 
crossing  several  walks  and  fences,  arrived 
at  Concord,  at  the  time  above  mentioned ; 
when  several  posts  were  immediately 
dispatched  that,  returning,  confirmed  the 
account  of  the  regulars'  arrival  at  Lexing- 
ton and  that  they  were  on  their  way  to 
326 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

Concord.  Upon  this,  a  number  of  our 
minute-men  belonging  to  this  town,  and 
Acton,  and  Lincoln,  with  several  others 
that  were  in  readiness,  marched  out  to 
meet  them ;  while  the  alarm  company  was 
preparing  to  receive  them  in  the  town. 
Captain  Minot,  who  commanded  them, 
thought  it  proper  to  take  possession  of  the 
hill  above  the  meeting-house,  as  the  most 
advantageous  situation.  No  sooner  had 
our  men  gained  it,  than  we  were  met  by 
the  companies  that  were  sent  out  to  meet 
the  troops,  who  informed  us  that  they  were 
just  upon  us,  and  that  we  must  retreat,  as 
their  number  was  more  than  treble  ours. 
We  then  retreated  from  the  hill  near  the 
Liberty  Pole,  and  took  a  new  post  back  of 
the  town  upon  an  eminence,  where  we 
formed  into  two  battalions,  and  waited  the 
arrival  of  the  enemy. 

"  Scarcely  had  we   formed  before  we 

327 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

saw  the  British  troops  at  the  distance  of 
a  quarter  of  a  mile,  glittering  in  arms, 
advancing  toward  us  with  the  greatest 
celerity.  Some  were  for  making  a  stand, 
notwithstanding  the  superiority  of  their 
numbers,  but  others,  more  prudent,  thought 
best  to  retreat  till  our  strength  should  be 
equal  to  the  enemy's  by  recruits  from  the 
neighbouring  towns,  that  were  continually 
coming  in  to  our  assistance.  Accordingly 
we  retreated  over  the  bridge;  when  the 
troops  came  into  the  town,  set  fire  to  several 
carriages  for  the  artillery,  destroyed  sixty 
barrels  flour,  rifled  several  houses,  took  pos- 
session of  the  town-house,  destroyed  five 
hundred  pounds  of  balls,  set  a  guard  of 
one  hundred  men  at  the  North  Bridge,  and 
sent  a  party  to  the  house  of  Colonel  Bar- 
rett, where  they  were  in  the  expectation  of 
finding  a  quantity  of  warlike  stores.  But 
these  were  happily  secured  just  before 
328 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOETREES 

their  arrival,  by  transportation  into  the 
woods  and  other  by-places. 

"  In  the  meantime  the  guard  sent  by  the 
enemy  to  secure  the  pass  at  the  North 
Bridge  were  alarmed  by  the  approach  of 
our  people ;  who  had  retreated  as  before 
mentioned,  and  were  now  advancing,  with 
special  orders  not  to  fire  upon  the  troops 
unless  fired  upon.  These  orders  were  so 
punctually  observed  that  we  received  the 
fire  of  the  enemy  in  three  several  and  sep- 
arate discharges  of  their  pieces  before  it 
was  returned  by  our  commanding  officer; 
the  firing  then  became  general  for  several 
minutes;  in  which  skirmish  two  were 
killed  on  each  side,  and  several  of  the 
enemy  wounded.  (It  may  here  be  ob- 
served, by  the  way,  that  we  were  the  more 
cautious  to  prevent  beginning  a  rupture 
with  the  king's  troops,  as  we  were  then  un- 
certain what  had  happened  at  Lexington, 

329 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

and  knew  not  that  they  had  begun  the 
quarrel  there  by  first  firing  upon  our  peo- 
ple, and  killing  eight  men  upon  the  spot.) 
The  three  companies  of  troops  soon  quitted 
their  post  at  the  bridge,  and  retreated  in 
the  greatest  disorder  and  confusion  to  the 
main  body,  who  were  soon  upon  their 
march  to  meet  them. 

"  For  half  an  hour  the  enemy,  by  their 
marches  and  countermarches,  discovered 
great  fickleness  and  inconstancy  of  mind, 
—  sometimes  advancing,  sometimes  return- 
ing to  their  former  posts;  till  at  length 
they  quitted  the  town  and  retreated  by 
the  way  they  came.  In  the  meantime,  a 
party  of  our  men  (one  hundred  and  fifty), 
took  the  back  way  through  the  Great  Fields 
into  the  East  Quarter,  and  had  placed 
themselves  to  advantage,  lying  in  ambush 
behind  walls,  fences,  and  buildings,  ready 

330 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

to  fire  upon  the  enemy  on  their  re- 
treat." 1 

Here  ends  the  important  chronicle,  the 
best  first-hand  account  we  have  of  the  battle 
of  Concord.  But  for  this  alone  the  first 
resident  of  the  Old  Manse  deserves  our 
memory  and  thanks. 

Mr.  Ernerson  was  succeeded  at  the 
Manse  by  a  certain  Doctor  Ripley,  a  ven- 
erable scholar  who  left  behind  him  a  repu- 
tation for  learning  and  sanctity  which 
was  reproduced  in  one  of  the  ladies  of 
his  family,  long  the  most  learned  woman 
in  the  little  Concord  circle  which  Haw- 
thorne soon  after  his  marriage  came  to 
join. 

Few  New  England  villages  have  re- 
tained so  much  of  the  charm  and  peaceful- 
ness  of  country  life  as  has  Concord,  and 

i  "  Historic  Towns  of  New  England."  G.  P.  Put- 
nam's Sons. 

331 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

few  dwellings  in  Concord  have  to-day  so 
nearly  the  aspect  they  presented  fifty 
years  ago  as  does  the  Manse,  where  Haw- 
thorne passed  three  of  the  happiest  years 
of  his  life. 

In  the  "  American  Note-Book,"  there  is 
a  charming  description  of  the  pleasure  the 
romancer  and  his  young  wife  experienced 
in  renovating  and  refurnishing  the  old 
parsonage  which,  at  the  time  of  their  going 
into  it,  was  "  given  up  to  ghosts  and  cob- 
webs." Some  of  these  ghosts  have  been 
shiveringly  described  by  Hawthorne  him- 
self in  the  marvellous  paragraph  of  the  in- 
troduction already  referred  to :  "Our  [cler- 
ical] ghost  used  to  heave  deep  sighs  in  a 
particular  corner  of  the  parlour,  and  some- 
times rustle  paper,  as  if  he  were  turning 
over  a  sermon  in  the  long  upper  entry  — 
where,  nevertheless,  he  was  invisible,  in 
spite  of  the  bright  moonshine  that  fell 
332 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  BOOFTKEES 

through  the  eastern  window.  Not  im- 
probably he  wished  me  to  edit  and  publish 
a  selection  from  a  chest  full  of  manuscript 
discourses  that  stood  in  the  garret. 

"  Once  while  Hillard  and  other  friends 
sat  talking  with  us  in  the  twilight,  there 
came  a  rustling  noise  as  of  a  minister's 
silk  gown  sweeping  through  the  very  midst 
of  the  company,  so  closely  as  almost  to 
brush  against  the  chairs.  Still  there  was 
nothing  visible. 

"  A  yet  stranger  business  was  that  of  a 
ghostly  servant-maid,  who  used  to  be  heard 
in  the  kitchen  at  deepest  midnight,  grind- 
ing coffee,  cooking,  ironing,  —  perform- 
ing, in  short,  all  kinds  of  domestic  labour^ 
—  although  no  traces  of  anything  accom- 
plished could  be  detected  the  next  morn- 
ing. Some  neglected  duty  of  her  servitude 
—  some  ill-starched  ministerial  band  — 

333 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

disturbed  the  poor  damsel  in  her  grave, 
and  kept  her  at  work  without  wages." 

The  little  drawing-room  once  remod- 
elled, however,  and  the  kitchen  given  over 
to  the  Hawthorne  pots  and  pans  —  in 
which  the  great  Hawthorne  himself  used 
often  to  have  a  stake,  according  to  the  tes- 
timony of  his  wife,  who  once  wrote  in  this 
connection,  "  Imagine  those  magnificent 
eyes  fixed  anxiously  upon  potatoes  cooking 
in  an  iron  kettle !  "  —  the  ghosts  came  no 
more.  Of  the  great  people  who  in  the 
flesh  passed  pleasant  hours  in  the  little 
parlour,  Thoreau,  Ellery  Channing,  Emer- 
son, and  Margaret  Fuller  are  names  known 
by  everybody  as  intimately  connected  with 
the  Concord  circle. 

Hawthorne    himself    cared    little    for 

society.     Often  he  would  go  to  the  village 

and  back  without  speaking  to  a  single  soul, 

he  tells  us,  and  once  when  his  wife  was 

334 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

absent  he  resolved  to  pass  the  whole  term 
of  her  visit  to  relatives  without  saying  a 
word  to  any  human  being.  With  Thoreau, 
however,  he  got  on  very  well.  This  odd 
genius  was  as  shy  and  ungregarious  as 
was  the  dark-eyed  "  teller  of  tales/'  but 
the  two  appear  to  have  been  socially  dis- 
posed toward  each  other,  and  there  are 
delightful  bits  in  the  preface  to  the 
"  Mosses "  in  regard  to  the  hours  they 
spent  together  boating  on  the  large,  quiet 
Concord  River.  Thoreau  was  a  great  voy- 
ager in  a  canoe  which  he  had  constructed 
himself  (and  which  he  eventually  made 
over  to  Hawthorne),  as  expert  indeed  in  the 
use  of  his  paddle  as  the  redman  who  had 
once  haunted  the  same  silent  stream. 

Of  the  beauties  of  the  Concord  River 
Hawthorne  has  written  a  few  sentences 
that  will  live  while  the  silver  stream  con- 
tinues to  flow :  "  It  comes  creeping  softly 

335 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

through  the  mid-most  privacy  and  deepest 
heart  of  a  wood  which  whispers  it  to  be 
quiet,  while  the  stream  whispers  back  again 
from  its  sedgy  borders,  as  if  river  and 
wood  were  hushing  one  another  to  sleep. 
Yes;  the  river  sleeps  along  its  course 
and  dreams  of  the  sky  and  the  clustering 
foliage.  .  .  ." 

Concerning  the  visitors  attracted  to 
Concord  by  the  great  original  thinker  who 
was  Hawthorne's  near  neighbour,  the  ro- 
mancer speaks  with  less  delicate  sympathy : 
"  Never  was  a  poor  little  country  village 
infested  with  such  a  variety  of  queer, 
strangely  dressed,  oddly  behaved  mortals, 
most  of  whom  look  upon  themselves  to  be 
important  agents  of  the  world's  destiny, 
yet  are  simply  bores  of  a  very  intense 
character."  A  bit  further  on  Hawthorne 
speaks  of  these  pilgrims  as  "  hobgoblins 
of  flesh  and  blood/'  people,  he  humourously 
336 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

comments,  who  had  lighted  on  a  new 
thought  or  a  thought  they  fancied  new, 
and  "  came  to  Emerson  as  the  finder  of  a 
glittering  gem  hastens  to  a  lapidary  to 
ascertain  its  quality  and  value."  With 
Emerson  himself  Hawthorne  was  on  terms 
of  easy  intimacy.  "  Being  happy,"  as  he 
says,  and  feeling,  therefore,  "  as  if  there 
were  no  question  to  be  put,"  he  was  not 
in  any  sense  desirous  of  metaphysical  in- 
tercourse with  the  great  philosopher. 

It  was  while  on  the  way  home  from  his 
friend  Emerson's  one  day  that  Hawthorne 
had  that  encounter  with  Margaret  Fuller 
about  which  it  is  so  pleasant  to  read  because 
it  serves  to  take  away  the  taste  of  other  less 
complimentary  allusions  to  this  lady  to  be 
found  in  Hawthorne's  works: 

"After  leaving  Mr.  Emerson's  I  returned 
through  the  woods,  and  entering  Sleepy 
Hollow,  I  perceived  a  lady  reclining  near 

387 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOETBEES 

the  path  which  bends  along  its  verge.  It 
was  Margaret  herself.  She  had  been  there 
the  whole  afternoon,  meditating  or  read- 
ing, for  she  had  a  book  in  her  hand  with 
some  strange  title  which  I  did  not  under- 
stand and  have  forgotten.  She  said  that 
nobody  had  broken  her  solitude,  and  was 
just  giving  utterance  to  a  theory  that  no 
inhabitant  of  Concord  ever  visited  Sleepy 
Hollow,  when  we  saw  a  group  of  people 
entering  the  sacred  precincts.  Most  of 
them  followed  a  path  which  led  them  away 
from  us;  but  an  old  man  passed  near  us, 
and  smiled  to  see  Margaret  reclining  on 
the  ground  and  me  standing  by  her  side. 
He  made  some  remark  upon  the  beauty  of 
the  afternoon,  and  withdrew  himself 
into  the  shadow  of  the  wood.  Then  we 
talked  about  autumn,  and  about  the  pleas- 
ures of  being  lost  in  the  woods,  and  about 
the  crows  whose  voices  Margaret  had 
338 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOETREES 

heard ;  and  about  the  experiences  of  early 
childhood,  whose  influence  remains  upon 
the  character  after  the  recollection  of  them 
has  passed  away;  and  about  the  sight  of 
mountains  from  a  distance,  and  the  view 
from  their  summits ;  and  about  other  mat- 
ters of  high  and  low  philosophy." 

Nothing  that  Hawthorne  has  ever  writ- 
ten of  Concord  is  more  to  be  cherished 
to-day  than  this  description  of  a  happy 
afternoon  passed  by  him  in  Sleepy  Hollow 
talking  with  Margaret  Euller  of  "  matters 
of  high  and  low  philosophy."  For  there 
are  few  parts  of  Concord  to  which  visitors 
go  more  religiously  than  to  the  still  old 
cemetery,  where  on  the  hill  by  Ridge  Path 
Hawthorne  himself  now  sleeps  quietly, 
with  the  grave  of  Thoreau  just  behind  him, 
and  the  grave  of  Emerson,  his  philosopher- 
friend,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  way. 
A  great  pine  stands  at  the  head  of  Haw- 

339 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

thorne's  last  resting-place,  and  a  huge  un- 
hewn block  of  pink  marble  is  his  formal 
monument. 

Yet  the  Old  Manse  will,  so  long  as  it 
stands,  be  the  romancer's  most  intimate 
relic,  for  it  was  here  that  he  lived  as  a 
happy  bridegroom,  and  here  that  his  first 
child  was  born.  And  from  this  ancient 
dwelling  it  was  that  he  drew  the  inspira- 
tion for  what  is  perhaps  the  most  curious 
book  of  tales  in  all  American  literature, 
a  book  of  which  another  American  master 
of  prose  1  has  said,  "  Hawthorne  here  did 
for  our  past  what  Walter  Scott  did  for 
the  past  of  the  mother-country;  another 
Wizard  of  the  North,  he  breathed  the 
breath  of  life  into  the  dry  and  dusty  mate- 
rials of  history,  and  summoned  the  great 
dead  again  to  live  and  move  among  us." 
1  Henry  James. 

340 


SALEM'S    CHINESE    GOD 

the  romantic  figures  which  grace 
the  history  of  New  England  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  none  is  to  be 
compared  in  dash  and  in  all  those  other 
qualities  that  captivate  the  imagination 
with  the  figure  of  Frederick  Townsend 
Ward,  the  Salem  boy  who  won  a  general- 
ship in  the  Chinese  military  service,  sup- 
pressed the  Tai-Ping  rebellion,  organised 
the  " Ever- Victorious  Army"  -for  whose 
exploits  "  Chinese  "  Gordon  always  gets 
credit  in  history  —  and  died  fighting  at 
Ning  Po  for  a  nation  of  which  he  had  be- 
come one,  a  fair  daughter  of  which  he  had 
married,  and  by  which  he  is  to-day  wor- 

341 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

shipped  as  a  god.  Very  far  certainly  did 
this  soldier  of  fortune  wander  in  the  thirty 
short  years  of  his  life  from  the  peaceful 
red-brick  Townsend  mansion  (now,  alas !  a 
steam  bread  bakery),  at  the  corner  of 
Derby  and  Carleton  Streets,  Salem,  in 
which,  in  1831,  he  was  born. 

This  house  was  built  by  Ward's  grand- 
father, Townsend,  and  during  Frederick's 
boyhood  was  a  charming  place  of  the  com- 
fortable colonial  sort,  to  which  was  joined 
a  big,  rambling,  old-fashioned  garden,  and 
from  the  upper  windows  of  which  there 
was  to  be  had  a  fascinating  view  of  the 
broad-stretching  sea.  To  the  sea  it  was, 
therefore,  that  the  lad  naturally  turned 
when,  after  ending  his  education  at  the 
Salem  High  School,  he  was  unable  to  gain 
admission  to  the  military  academy  at  West 
Point  and  follow  the  soldier  career  in 
which  it  had  always  been  his  ambition  to 
342 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

shine.  He  shipped  before  the  mast  on  an 
American  vessel  sailing  from  New  York. 
Apparently  even  the  hardships  of  such  a 
common  sailor's  lot  could  not  dampen  his 
ardour  for  adventure,  for  he  made  a  num- 
ber of  voyages. 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  Crimean  war 
young  Ward  was  in  France,  and,  thinking 
that  his  long-looked  for  opportunity  had 
come,  he  entered  the  French  army  for  ser- 
vice against  the  Russians.  Enlisting  as  a 
private,  he  soon,  through  the  influence  of 
friends,  rose  to  be  a  lieutenant;  but,  be- 
coming embroiled  in  a  quarrel  with  his 
superior  officer,  he  resigned  his  commis- 
sion and  returned  to  New  York,  without 
having  seen  service  either  in  Russia  or 
Turkey. 

The  next  few  years  of  the  young  man's 
life  were  passed  as  a  ship  broker  in  New 
York  City,  but  this  work-a-day  career  soon 

343 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTREES 

became  too  humdrum,  and  he  looked  about 
for  something  that  promised  more  adven- 
tures. He  had  not  to  look  far.  Colonel 
William  Walker  and  his  filibusters  were 
about  to  start  on  the  celebrated  expedition 
against  Nicaragua,  and  with  them  Ward 
determined  to  cast  in  his  lot.  Through  the 
trial  by  fire  which  awaited  the  ill-fated 
expedition,  he  passed  unhurt,  and  escaping 
by  some  means  or  other  its  fatal  termina- 
tion, returned  to  New  York. 

California  next  attracted  his  attention, 
but  here  he  met  with  no  better  success,  and 
after  a  hand-to-mouth  existence  of  a  few 
months  he  turned  again  to  seafaring  life, 
and  shipped  for  China  as  the  mate  of  an 
American  vessel.  His  arrival  at  Shanghai 
in  1859  was  most  opportune,  for  there  the 
chance  for  which  he  had  been  longing 
awaited  him. 

The  great  Tai-Ping  rebellion,  that  half- 
344 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

Christian,  wholly  fanatical  uprising  which 
devastated  many  flourishing  provinces,  had, 
at  this  time,  attained  alarming  propor- 
tions. Ching  Wang,  with  a  host  of  blood- 
crazed  rebels,  had  swept  over  the  country 
in  the  vicinity  of  Shanghai  with  fire  and 
sword,  and  at  the  time  of  Ward's  arrival 
these  fanatics  were  within  eighteen  miles 
of  the  city. 

The  Chinese  merchants  had  appealed  in 
vain  to  the  foreign  consuls  for  assistance. 
The  imperial  government  had  made  no 
plans  for  the  preservation  of  Shanghai.  So 
the  wealthy  merchants,  fearing  for  their 
stores,  resolved  to  take  the  matter  into 
their  own  hands,  and  after  a  consultation 
of  many  days,  offered  a  reward  of  two 
hundred  thousand  dollars  to  any  body  of 
foreigners  who  should  drive  the  Tai-Pings 
from  the  city  of  Sungkiang. 

Salem's  soldier  of  fortune,  Frederick  T. 

345 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

Ward,  responded  at  once  to  the  opportunity 
thus  offered.  He  accepted  in  June,  1860, 
the  offer  of  Ta  Kee,  the  mandarin  at  the 
head  of  the  merchant  body,  and  in  less  than 
a  week  —  such  was  the  magnetism  of  the 
man  —  had  raised  a  body  of  one  hundred 
foreign  sailors,  and,  with  an  American  by 
the  name  of  Henry  Burgevine  as  his  lieu- 
tenant, had  set  out  for  Sungkiang.  The 
men  in  Ward's  company  were  desperadoes, 
for  the  most  part,  but  they  were  no  match, 
of  course,  for  the  twelve  thousand  Tai- 
Pings.  This  Ward  realised  as  soon  as  the 
skirmishing  advance  had  been  made,  and 
he  returned  to  Shanghai  for  reinforce- 
ments. 

Erom  the  Chinese  imperial  troops  he  ob- 
tained men  to  garrison  whatever  courts 
the  foreign  legation  might  capture,  an  ar- 
rangement which  left  the  adventurers  free 

346 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

to  go  wherever  their  action  could  be  most 
effective. 

Thus  reinforced,  Ward  once  more  set 
out  for  Sungkiang.  Even  on  this  occasion 
his  men  were  outnumbered  one  hundred 
to  one,  but,  such  was  the  desperation  of 
the  attacking  force,  the  rebels  were  driven 
like  sheep  to  the  slaughter,  and  the  defeat 
of  the  Tai-Pings  was  overwhelming.  It 
was  during  this  battle,  it  is  interesting  to 
know,  that  the  term  "  foreign  devils  "  first 
found  place  in  the  Chinese  vocabulary. 

The  promised  reward  was  forthwith  pre- 
sented to  the  gifted  American  soldier,  and 
immediately  Ward  accepted  a  second  com- 
mission against  the  rebels  at  Singpo.  The 
Tai-Pings  of  this  city  were  under  the 
leadership  of  a  renegade  Englishman 
named  Savage,  and  the  fighting  was  fast 
and  furious.  Ward  and  his  men  performed 
many  feats  of  valour,  and  actually  scaled 

347 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

the  city  wall,  thirty  feet  in  height,  to  fight 
like  demons  upon  its  top.  But  it  was  with- 
out avail.  With  heavy  losses,  they  were 
driven  back. 

But  the  attempt  was  not  abandoned.  Re- 
tiring to  Shanghai,  Ward  secured  the 
assistance  of  about  one  hundred  new  for- 
eign recruits,  and  with  them  returned  once 
more  to  the  scene  of  his  defeat.  Half  a 
mile  from  the  walls  of  Singpo  the  little 
band  of  foreign  soldiers  of  fortune  and 
poorly  organised  imperial  troops  were  met 
by  Savage  and  the  Tai-Pings,  and  the  bat- 
tle that  resulted  waged  for  hours.  The 
rebels  were  the  aggressors,  and  h»n  miles  of 
Ward's  retreat  upon  Sungkiang  saw  fight- 
ing every  inch  of  the  way.  The  line  of 
retreat  was  strewn  with  rebel  dead,  and 
such  were  their  losses  that  they  retired 
from  the  province  altogether. 

Later  Savage  was  killed,  and  the  Tai- 

348 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

Pings  quieted  down.  For  his  exploits 
Ward  received  the  monetary  rewards 
agreed  upon,  and  was  also  granted  the 
button  of  a  mandarin  of  the  fourth  degree. 

He  had  received  severe  wounds  during 
the  campaigns,  and  was  taking  time  to 
recuperate  from  them  at  Shanghai  when 
the  jealousy  of  other  foreigners  made  itself 
felt,  and  the  soldier  from  Salem  was 
obliged  to  face  a  charge  before  the  United 
States  consul  that  he  had  violated  the  neu- 
trality laws.  The  matter  was  dropped, 
however,  because  the  hero  of  Sungkiang 
promply  swore  that  he  was  no  longer  an 
American  citizen,  as  he  had  become  a 
naturalised  subject  of  the  Chinese  em- 
peror ! 

Realising  the  value  of  the  Chinese  as 
fighting  men,  Ward  now  determined  to  or- 
ganise a  number  of  Chinese  regiments, 
officer  them  with  Europeans,  and  arm  and 

349 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

equip  them  after  American  methods.  This 
he  did,  and  in  six  months  he  appeared  at 
Shanghai  at  the  head  of  three  bodies  of 
Chinese,  splendidly  drilled  and  under  iron 
discipline.  He  arrived  in  the  nick  of  time, 
and,  routing  a  vastly  superior  force,  saved 
the  city  from  capture. 

After  this  exploit  he  was  no  longer 
shunned  by  Europeans  as  an  adventurer 
and  an  outlaw.  He  was  too  prominent  to 
be  overlooked.  His  Ever- Victorious  Army, 
as  it  was  afterward  termed,  entered  upon 
a  campaign  of  glorious  victory.  One  after 
another  of  the  rebel  strongholds  fell  before 
it,  and  its  leader  was  made  a  mandarin 
of  the  highest  grade,  with  the  title  of 
admiral-general. 

Ward  then  assumed  the  Chinese  name  of 

Hwa,  and  married  Changmei,  a  maiden  of 

high  degree,  who  was  nineteen  at  the  time 

of  her  wedding,  and  as  the  daughter  of  one 

350 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

of  the  richest  and  most  exalted  mandarins 
of  the  red  button,  was  considered  in  China 
an  exceedingly  good  match  for  the  Salem 
youth.  According  to  oriental  standards 
she  was  a  beauty,  too. 

Ward  did  not  rest  long  from  his  cam- 
paigns, however,  for  we  find  that  he  was 
soon  besieged  in  the  city  of  Sungkiang 
with  a  few  men.  A  relieving  force  of  the 
Ever- Victorious  Army  here  came  to  his 
assistance. 

He  did  not  win  all  his  victories  easily. 
In  the  battle  of  Ningpo,  toward  the  end  of 
the  first  division  of  the  Tai-Ping  rebellion, 
the  carnage  was  frightful.  Outnumbered, 
but  not  outgeneralled,  the  government 
forces  fought  valiantly.  Ward  was  shot 
through  the  stomach  while  leading  a 
charge,  but  refused  to  leave  the  field  while 
the  battle  was  on.  Through  his  field  offi- 
cers he  directed  his  men,  and  when  the 

351 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

victory  was  assiired,  fell  back  unconscious 
in  the  arms  of  his  companion,  Burgevine 
He  was  carried  to  Ningpo,  where  he  died 
the  following  morning,  a  gallant  and  dis- 
tinguished soldier,  although  still  only 
thirty  years  old. 

In  the  Confucian  cemetery  at  Ningpo 
his  body  was  laid  at  rest  with  all  possible 
honours  and  with  military  ceremony  be- 
coming his  rank.  Over  his  grave,  and  that 
of  his  young  wife,  who  survived  him  only 
a  few  months,  a  mausoleum  was  erected, 
and  monuments  were  placed  on  the  scenes 
of  his  victories.  The  mausoleum  soon  be- 
came a  shrine  invested  with  miraculous 
power,  and  a  number  of  years  after  his 
death  General  Ward  was  solemnly  declared 
to  be  a  joss  or  god.  The  manuscript  of  the 
imperial  edict  to  this  effect  is  now  pre- 
served in  the  Essex  Institute. 

The  command  of  the   Ever- Victorious 
352 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

army  reverted  to  Burgevine,  but  later, 
through  British  intrigue,  to  General  Gor- 
don. It  was  Ward,  however,  the  Salem 
lad,  who  organised  the  army  by  which 
Chinese  Gordon  gained  his  fame.  The 
British  made  a  saint  and  martyr  of  Gor- 
don, and  called  Ward  an  adventurer  and 
a  common  sailor,  but  the  Chinese  rated 
him  more  nearly  as  he  deserved. 

In  a  little  red-bound  volume  printed  in 
Shanghai  in  1863,  and  translated  from  the 
Chinese  for  the  benefit  of  a  few  of  General 
Ward's  relatives  in  this  country  —  a  work 
which  I  have  been  permitted  to  examine  — 
the  native  chronicler  says  of  our  hero : 

"  What  General  Ward  has  done  to  and 
for  China  is  as  yet  but  imperfectly  known, 
for  those  whose  duty  it  is  to  transfer  to  pos- 
terity a  record  of  this  great  man  are  either 
so  wrapped  in  speculation  as  to  how  to 
build  themselves  up  on  his  deeds  of  the 

353 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

past  time,  or  are  so  fearful  that  any  com 
merit  on  any  subject  regarding  him  may 
detract  from  their  ability,  that  with  his 
last  breath  they  allow  all  that  appertains 
to  him  to  be  buried  in  the  tomb.  Not  one 
in  ten  thousand  of  them  could  at  all 
approach  him  in  military  genius,  in 
courage,  and  in  resource,  or  do  anything 
like  what  he  did." 

In  his  native  land  Ward  has  never  been 
honoured  as  he  deserves  to  be.  On  the 
contrary,  severe  criticism  has  been  accorded 
him  because  he  was  fighting  in  China  for 
money  during  our  civil  war,  "  when,"  said 
his  detractors,  "  he  might  have  been  using 
his  talents  for  the  protection  of  the  flag 
under  which  he  was  born." 

But  this  was  the  fault  of  circumstances 

rather  than  of  intention.     Ward  wished, 

above  everything,  to  be  a  soldier,  and  when 

he    found    fighting   waiting    for    him    in 

354 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

China,  it  was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the 
world  for  him  to  accept  the  opportunity 
the  gods  provided.  But  he  did  what  he 
could  under  the  circumstances  for  his 
country.  He  offered  ten  thousand  dollars 
to  the  national  cause  —  and  was  killed  in 
the  Chinese  war  before  the  answer  to  his 
proffer  of  financial  aid  came  from  Minister 
Anson  Burlingame. 

It  is  rather  odd  that  just  the  amount 
that  he  wished  to  be  used  by  the  North 
for  the  advancement  of  the  Union  cause 
has  recently  (1901)  been  bequeathed  to 
the  Essex  Institute  at  Salem  by  Miss 
Elizabeth  C.  Ward,  his  lately  deceased  sis- 
ter, to  found  a  Chinese  library  in  memory 
of  Salem's  soldier  of  fortune.  Thus  is 
rounded  out  this  very  romantic  chapter  of 
modern  American  history. 


355 


THE   WELL -SWEEP   OE   A   SONG 

rHAT  the  wise  Shakespeare  spoke 
the  truth  when  he  observed  that 
"  one  touch  of  nature  makes  the 
whole  world  kin  "  has  never  been  better 
exemplified  than  in  the  affectionate  tender- 
ness with  which  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men  join  in  singing  a  song  like  "  The 
Old  Oaken  Bucket.77     As  one  hears  this 
ballad  in  a  crowded  room,  or  even  as  so 
often  given  —  in  a  New  England  play  like 
"  The  Old  Homestead,77  one  does  not  stop 
to  analyse  one's  sensations;    one  forgets 
the  homely  phrase ;    one  simply  feels  and 
knows  oneself  the  better  for  the  memories 
356 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

of  happy  and  innocent  childhood  which  the 
simple  song  invokes. 

Dear,  delightful  Goldsmith  has  wonder- 
fully expressed  in  "The  Deserted  Village'' 
the  inextinguishable  yearning  for  the  spot 
we  call  "  home  " : 

"  In  all  my  wanderings  round  this  world  of  care, 
In  all  my  griefs  —  and  God  has  given  my  share  — 
I  still  had  hopes,  my  long  vexations  past, 
Here  to  return  and  die  at  home  at  last," 

and  it  is  this  same  lyric  cry  that  has  been 
crystallised  for  all  time,  so  far  as  the 
American  people  are  concerned,  in  "  The 
Old  Oaken  Bucket." 

The  day  will  not  improbably  come  when 
the  allusions  in  this  poem  will  demand  as 
careful  an  explanation  as  some  of  Shake- 
speare's archaic  references  now  call  for. 
But  even  when  this  time  does  come,  and 
an  elaborate  description  of  the  strange  old 
custom  of  drawing  water  from  a  hole  in 

357 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

the  ground  by  means  of  a  long  pole  and 
a  rude  pail  will  be  necessary  to  an  under- 
standing of  the  poem,  men's  voices  will 
grow  husky  and  their  eyes  will  dim  at  the 
music  of  "  The  Old  Oaken  Bucket." 

It  is  to  the  town  of  Scituate,  Massachu- 
setts, one  of  the  most  ancient  settlements 
of  the  old  colony,  that  we  trace  back  the 
local  colour  which  pervades  the  poem.  The 
history  of  the  place  is  memorable  and  in- 
teresting. The  people  come  of  a  hardy 
and  determined  ancestry,  who  fought  for 
every  inch  of  ground  that  their  descendants 
now  hold.  To  this  fact  may  perhaps  be 
attributed  the  strength  of  those  associa- 
tions, clinging  like  ivy  around  some  of  the 
most  notable  of  the  ancient  homesteads. 

The  scene  so  vividly  described  in  the 

charming  ballad  we  are  considering  is  a 

little  valley  through  which  Herring  Brook 

pursues  its  devious  way  to  meet  the  tidal 

358 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

waters  of  North  River.  "  The  view  of  it 
from  Coleman  Heights,  with  its  neat  cot- 
tages, its  maple  groves,  and  apple  orchards, 
is  remarkably  beautiful,"  writes  one  appre- 
ciative author.  The  "  wide-spreading 
pond,"  the  "  mill,"  the  "  dairy-house,"  the 
"  rock  where  the  cataract  fell,"  and  even 
the  "  old  well,"  if  not  the  original  "  moss- 
covered  bucket "  itself,  may  still  be  seen 
just  as  the  poet  described  them. 

In  quaint,  homely  Scituate,  Samuel 
Woodworth,  the  people's  poet,  was  indeed 
born  and  reared.  Although  the  original 
house  is  no  longer  there,  a  pretty  place 
called  "  The  Old  Oaken  Bucket  House  " 
still  stands,  a  modern  successor  to  the  poet's 
home,  and  at  another  bucket,  oaken  if  not 
old,  the  pilgrim  of  to-day  may  stop  to 
slake  his  thirst  from  the  very  waters,  the 
recollection  of  which  gave  the  poet  such 
exquisite  pleasure  in  after  years.  One 

359 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

would  fain  have  the  surroundings  un- 
changed—  the  cot  where  Woodworth 
dwelt,  the  ponderous  well-sweep,  creaking 
with  age,  at  which  his  youthful  hands  were 
wont  to  tug  strongly ;  and  finally  the  mossy 
bucket,  overflowing  with  crystal  nectar 
fresh  from  the  cool  depths  below.  Yet  in 
spite  of  the  changes,  one  gets  fairly  well 
the  illusion  of  the  ancient  spot,  and  comes 
away  well  content  to  have  quaffed  a 
draught  of  such  excellent  water  to  the 
memory  of  this  Scituate  poet. 

The  circumstances  under  which  the  pop- 
pular  ballad  was  composed  and  written 
are  said  to  be  as  follows:  Samuel  Wood- 
worth  was  a  printer  who  had  served  his 
apprenticeship  under  the  veteran  Major 
Russell  of  the  Columbian  Centinel,  a  jour- 
nal which  was  in  its  day  the  leading  Fed- 
eralist organ  of  New  England.  He  had 
inherited  the  wandering  propensity  of  his 
360 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTKEES 

craft,  and  yielding  to  the  desire  for  change 
he  was  successively  in  Hartford  and  New 
York,  doing  what  he  could  in  a  journalistic 
way.  In  the  latter  city  he  became  asso- 
ciated, after  an  unsuccessful  career  as  a 
publisher,  in  the  editorship  of  the  Mirror. 
And  it  was  while  living  in  New  York  in 
the  Bohemian  fashion  of  his  class,  that,  in 
company  with  some  brother  printers,  he 
one  day  dropped  in  at  a  well-known  estab- 
lishment then  kept  by  one  Mallory  to  take 
a  social  glass  of  wine. 

The  cognac  was  pronounced  excellent. 
After  drinking  it,  Woodworth  set  his  glass 
down  on  the  table,  and,  smacking  his  lips, 
declared  emphatically  that  Mallory's  eau 
de  vie  was  superior  to  anything  that  he  had 
ever  tasted. 

"  There  you  are  mistaken,"  said  one  of 
his  comrades,  quietly ;  then  added,  "  there 
certainly  was  one  thing  that  far  surpassed 

361 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

this  in  the  way  of  drinking,  as  you,  too, 
will  readily  acknowledge.'7 

"  Indeed ;  and,  pray,  what  was  that  ?  " 
Woodworth  asked,  with  apparent  incred- 
ulity that  anything  could  surpass  the  liquor 
then  before  him. 

"  The  draught  of  pure  and  sparkling 
spring  water  that  we  used  to  get  from  the 
old  oaken  bucket  that  hung  in  the  well, 
after  our  return  from  the  labours  of  the 
field  on  a  sultry  summer's  day." 

No  one  spoke ;  all  were  busy  with  their 
own  thoughts. 

Woodworth's  eyes  became  dimmed. 
"  True,  true,"  he  exclaimed ;  and  soon 
after  quitted  the  place.  With  his  heart 
overflowing  with  the  recollections  that  this 
chance  allusion  in  a  barroom  had  inspired, 
the  scene  of  his  happier  childhood  life 
rushed  upon  him  in  a  flood  of  feeling.  He 
hastened  back  to  the  office  in  which  he  then 
362 


OLD  JSTEW  ENGLAND  KOOETKEES 

worked,  seized  a  pen,  and  in  half  an  hour 
had  written  his  popular  ballad : 

"  How  dear  to  this  heart  are  the  scenes  of  my 

childhood, 

When  fond  recollection  presents  them  to  view  ! 
The  orchard,  the  meadow,  the  deep-tangled  wild- 
wood, 
And    every    loved    spot    which    my    infancy 

knew,  — 
The  wide-spreading   pond   and   the   mill  which 

stood  by  it, 
The  bridge  and  the  rock  where  the  cataract 

fell; 

The  cot  of  my  father,  the  dairy-house  nigh  it, 
And  e'en  the  rude  bucket  that  hung  in  the 

well,  - 

The  old  oaken  bucket,  the  iron-bound  bucket, 
The  moss-covered  bucket  which  hung  in  the 
well. 

"  The  moss-covered  vessel  I  hail  as  a  treasure ; 
For   often    at  noon   when  returned  from  the 

field, 
I  found  it  the  source  of  an  exquisite  pleasure, 

The  purest  and  sweetest  that  nature  can  yield. 
How   ardent  I  seized  it  with    hands   that  were 

glowing ! 

And  quick  to  the  white-pebbled  bottom  it  fell ; 

363 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

Then  soon  with  the  emblem  of   truth  overflow- 
ing, 
And  dripping  with  coolness  it  rose  from  the 

well,  — 

The  old  oaken  bucket,  the  iron-bound  bucket, 
The  moss-covered  bucket,  arose  from  the  well. 

"How   sweet   from   the   green     mossy   brim   to 

receive  it, 
As,  poised   from  the  curb,  it  inclined  to  my 

lips! 
Not  a  full  blushing  goblet  could  tempt  me  to 

leave  it, 
Though   filled  with    the   nectar   that  Jupiter 

sips. 
And  now,  far  removed  from  the  loved  situation, 

The  tear  of  regret  will  intrusively  swell, 
As  fancy  reverts  to  my  father's  plantation, 

And  sighs  for  the  bucket  which  hangs  in  the 

well,  — 

The  old  oaken  bucket,  the  iron-bound  bucket, 
The  moss-covered  bucket  which  hangs  in  the 
well." 

Woodworth's  reputation  rests  upon  this 
one  stroke  of  genius.     He  died  in  1842  a{, 
the  age  of  fifty-seven.     But  after  almosi 
364 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTEEES 

fifty  years  his  memory  is  still  green,  and 
we  still  delight  to  pay  tender  homage  to 
the  spot  which  inspired  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  songs  America  has  yet  produced. 


365 


WHITTIER'S    LOST    LOVE 

/N"  the  life  of  the  Quaker  poet  there  is 
an  unwritten  chapter  of  personal  his- 
tory full  to  the  brim  of  romance.    It 
will  be  remembered  that  Whittier  in  his 
will  left  ten  thousand  dollars  for  an  Ames- 
bury  Home  for  Aged  Women.     One  room 
in  this  home  Mrs.  Elizabeth  W.  Pickard 
(the  niece  to  whom  the  poet  bequeathed  his 
Amesbury    homestead,    and    who    passed 
away   in   the   early   spring   of   this   year 
[1902],    in    an    illness    contracted    while 
decorating  her  beloved  uncle's  grave  on  the 
anniversary  of  his  birth),   caused  to  be 
furnished   with    a   massive   black   walnut 
366 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  BOOFTKEES 

set  formerly  used  in  the  "  spare-room  "  of 
her  uncle's  house  —  the  room  where  Lucy 
Larcom,  Gail  Hamilton,  the  Gary  sisters, 
and  George  Macdonald  were  in  former 
times  entertained.  A  stipulation  of  this 
gift  was  that  the  particular  room  in  the 
Home  thus  to  be  furnished  was  to  be 
known  as  the  Whittier  room. 

In  connection  with  this  Home  and  this 
room  comes  the  story  of  romantic  interest. 
Two  years  after  the  death  of  Mr.  Whittier 
an  old  lady  made  application  for  admission 
to  the  Home  on  the  ground  that  in  her 
youth  she  was  a  schoolmate  and  friend  of 
the  poet.  And  although  she  was  not  en- 
titled to  admission  by  being  a  resident  of 
the  town,  she  would  no  doubt  have  been 
received  if  she  had  not  died  soon  after 
making  the  application. 

This  aged  woman  was  Mrs.  Evelina 
Bray  Downey,  concerning  whose  schoolgirl 

367 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

friendship  for  Whittier  many  inaccurate 
newspaper  articles  were  current  at  the 
time  of  her  death,  in  the  spring  of  1895. 
The  story  as  here  told  is,  however, 
authentic. 

Evelina  Bray  was  born  at  Marblehead, 
October  10,  1810.  She  was  the  youngest 
of  ten  children  of  a  ship  master,  who  made 
many  voyages  to  the  East  Indies  and  to 
European  ports.  In  a  letter  written  in 
1884,  Mrs  Downey  said  of  herself:  "  My 
father,  an  East  India  sea  captain,  made 
frequent  and  long  voyages.  For  safe- 
keeping and  improvement  he  sent  me  to 
Haverhill,  bearing  a  letter  of  introduction 
from  Captain  William  Story  to  the  family 
of  Judge  Bartley.  They  passed  me  over  to 
Mr.  Jonathan  K.  Smith,  and  Mrs.  Smith 
gave  me  as  a  roommate  her  only  daughter, 
Mary.  This  was  the  opening  season  of 
the  New  Haverhill  Academy,  a  sort  of 
368 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

rival  to  the  Bradford  Academy.  Subse- 
quently I  graduated  from  the  Ipswich 
Female  Seminary,  in  the  old  Mary  Lyon 
days." 

Mary  Smith,  Miss  Bray's  roommate  at 
Haverhill,  and  her  lifelong  friend  — 
though  for  fifty  years  they  were  lost  to 
each  other  —  was  afterward  the  wife  of 
Reverend  Doctor  S.  F.  Smith,  the  author 
of  "  America." 

Evelina  is  described  as  a  tall  and  stri- 
kingly beautiful  brunette,  with  remarkable 
richness  of  colouring,  and  she  took  high 
rank  in  scholarship.  The  house  on  Water 
Street  at  which  she  boarded  was  directly 
opposite  that  of  Abijah  W.  Thayer,  editor 
of  the  Haverhill  Gazette,  with  whom 
Whittier  boarded  while  at  the  academy. 
Whittier  was  then  nineteen  years  old,  and 
Evelina  was  seventeen.  Naturally,  they 
walked  to  and  from  the  school  together, 

369 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTREES 

and  their  interest  in  each  other  was  notice- 
able. 

If  the  Quaker  lad  harboured  thoughts  of 
marriage,  and  even  gave  expression  to 
them,  it  would  not  be  strange.  But  the 
traditions  of  Whittier's  sect  included  dis- 
approval of  music,  and  Evelina's  father 
had  given  her  a  piano,  and  she  was  fasci- 
nated with  the  study  of  the  art  proscribed 
by  the  Quakers.  Then,  too,  Whittier  was 
poor,  and  his  gift  of  versification,  which 
had  already  given  him  quite  a  reputation, 
was  not  considered  in  those  days  of  much 
consequence  as  a  means  of  livelihood.  If 
they  did  not  at  first  realise,  both  of  them, 
the  hopelessness  of  their  love,  they  found 
it  out  after  Miss  Bray's  return  to  her  home. 

About  this  time  Mr.  Whittier  accom- 
panied his  mother  to  a  quarterly  meeting 
of  the  Society  of  Friends  at  Salem,  and 
one  morning  before  breakfast  took  a  walk 
370 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTBEES 

of  a  few  miles  to  the  quaint  old  town  of 
Marblehead,  where  he  paid  a  visit  to  the 
home  of  his  schoolmate.  She  could  not 
invite  him  in,  but  instead  suggested  a 
stroll  along  the  picturesque,  rocky  shore 
of  the  bay. 

This  was  in  the  spring  or  early  summer 
of  1828,  and  the  poet  was  twenty  years 
old,  a  farmer's  boy,  with  high  ambitions, 
but  with  no  outlook  as  yet  toward  any 
profession.  It  may  be  imagined  that  the 
young  couple,  after  a  discussion  of  the 
situation,  saw  the  hopelessness  of  securing 
the  needed  consent  of  their  parents,  and 
returned  from  their  morning's  walk  with 
saddened  hearts.  Whatever  dreams  they 
may  have  cherished  were  from  that  hour 
abandoned,  and  they  parted  with  this  un- 
derstanding. 

In  the  next  fifty  years  they  mefc  but  once 
again,  four  or  five  years  after  the  morning 

371 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KOOFTKEES 

walk,  and  this  once  was  at  Marblehead, 
along  the  shore.  Miss  Bray  had  in  the 
meantime  been  teaching  in  a  seminary 
in  Mississippi,  and  Whittier  had  been  edit- 
ing papers  in  Boston  and  Hartford,  and 
had  published  his  first  book,  a  copy  of 
which  he  had  sent  her.  There  was  no  re- 
newal at  this  time  of  their  lover-like  rela- 
tions, and  they  parted  in  friendship. 

I  have  said  that  they  met  but  once  in  the 
half-century  after  that  morning's  walk; 
the  truth  is  they  were  once  again  close  to- 
gether, but  Whittier  was  not  conscious  of 
it.  This  was  while  he  was  editing  the 
Pennsylvania  Freeman,  at  Philadelphia. 
Miss  Bray  was  then  associated  with  a  Miss 
Catherine  Beecher,  in  an  educational 
movement  of  considerable  importance,  and 
was  visiting  Philadelphia..  Just  at  this  time 
a  noted  Massachusetts  divine,  Reverend 
Doctor  Todd,  was  announced  to  preach  in 
372 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAKD  ROOFTEEES 

the  Presbyterian  church,  and  both  these 
Haverhill  schoolmates  were  moved  to  hear 
him.  By  a  singular  chance  they  occupied 
the  same  pew,  and  sat  close  together,  but 
Miss  Bray  was  the  only  one  who  was  con- 
scious of  this,  and  she  was  too  shy  to  reveal 
herself.  It  must  have  been  her  bonnet  hid 
her  face,  for  otherwise  Whittier's  remark- 
ably keen  eyes  could  not  have  failed  to 
recognise  the  dear  friend  of  his  school- 
days. 

Their  next  meeting  was  at  the  reunion 
of  the  Haverhill  Academy  class  of  1827, 
which  was  held  in  1885,  half  a  century 
after  their  second  interview  at  Marble- 
head.  It  was  said  by  some  that  it  was  this 
schoolboy  love  which  Whittier  commemo- 
rated in  his  poem,  "  Memories."  But  Mr. 
Pickard,  the  poet's  biographer,  affirms  that, 
so  far  as  known,  the  only  direct  reference 
made  by  Whittier  to  the  affair  under 

373 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTKEES 

consideration  occurred  in  the  fine  poem, 
"  A  Sea  Dream/'  written  in  1874. 

In  the  poet,  now  an  old  man,  the  sight 
of  Marblehead  awakens  the  memory  of  that 
morning  walk,  and  he  writes : 

"  Is  this  the  wind,  the  soft  sea  wind 
That  stirred  thy  locks  of  brown  ? 
Are  these  the  rocks  whose  mosses  knew 
The  trail  of  thy  light  gown, 
Where  boy  and  girl  sat  down  ? 

"  I  see  the  gray  fort's  broken  wall, 

The  boats  that  rock  below ; 
And,  out  at  sea,  the  passing  sails 
We  saw  so  long  ago, 
Rose-red  in  morning's  glow. 


"  Thou  art  not  here,  thou  art  not  there, 

Thy  place  I  cannot  see  ; 
I  only  know  that  where  thou  art 
The  blessed  angels  be, 
And  heaven  is  glad  for  thee. 


»  But  turn  to  me  thy  dear  girl -face 
Without  the  angel's  crown, 
374 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOETKEES 

The  wedded  roses  of  thy  lips, 
Thy  loose  hair  rippling  down 
In  waves  of  golden  brown. 

"  Look  forth  once  more  through  space  and  time 

And  let  thy  sweet  shade  fall 
In  tenderest  grace  of  soul  and  form 
On  memory's  frescoed  wall,  — 
A  shadow,  and  yet  all  1  " 

Whittier,  it  will  be  seen,  believed  that 
the  love  of  his  youth  was  dead.  He  was 
soon  to  find  out,  in  a  very  odd  way,  that 
this  was  not  the  case. 

Early  in  the  forties,  Miss  Bray  became 
principal  of  the  "  female  department "  of 
the  Benton  School  at  St.  Louis.  In  1849, 
during  the  prevalence  of  a  fearful  epi- 
demic, the  school  building  was  converted 
into  a  hospital,  and  one  of  the  patients  was 
an  Episcopal  clergyman,  Reverend  Will- 
iam S.  Downey,  an  Englishman,  claiming 
to  be  of  noble  birth.  He  recovered  his 
health,  but  was  entirely  deaf,  not  being 

375 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

able  to  hear  the  loudest  sound  for  the  re- 
mainder of  his  life.  Miss  Bray  married 
him,  and  for  forty  years  endured  martyr- 
dom, for  he  was  of  a  tyrannous  disposition 
and  disagreeably  eccentric. 

Mrs.  Downey  had  never  told  her  hus- 
band of  her  early  acquaintance  with  Whit- 
tier,  but  he  found  it  out  by  a  singular 
chance.  When  Reverend  S.  F.  Smith  and 
his  wife  celebrated  the  fiftieth  anniversary 
of  their  marriage  the  event  was  mentioned 
in  the  papers,  and  the  fact  that  Mrs.  Smith 
was  a  schoolmate  of  Whittier  was  chron- 
icled. Mr.  Downey  had  heard  his  wife 
speak  of  being  a  schoolmate  of  the  wife  of 
the  author  of  "  America,"  and,  putting 
these  two  circumstances  together,  he  con- 
cluded that  his  wife  must  also  have  known 
the  Quaker  poet  in  his  youth.  He  said 
nothing  to  her  about  this,  however,  but 
wrote  a  letter  to  Whittier  himself,  and  sent 
376 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOETREES 

with  it  a  tract  he  had  written  in  severe 
denunciation  of  Colonel  Robert  G.  Inger- 
soll.  As  a  postscript  to  this  letter  he 
asked :  "  Did  you  ever  know  Evelina 
Bray  ? "  Whittier  at  once  replied,  ac- 
knowledging the  receipt  of  the  tract,  and 
making  this  characteristic  comment  upon 
it: 

"  It  occurs  to  me  to  say,  however,  that 
in  thy  tract  thee  has  hardly  charity  enough 
for  that  unfortunate  man,  Ingersoll,  who, 
it  se^ms  to  me,  is  much  to  be  pitied  for 
his  darkness  of  unbelief.  We  must  re- 
member that  one  of  the  great  causes  of 
infidelity  is  the  worldliness,  selfishness, 
and  evil  dealing  of  professed  Christians. 
An  awful  weight  of  responsibility  rests 
upon  the  Christian  church  in  this  respect." 

And  to  this  letter  Whittier  added  as  a 
postscript :  "  Can  you  give  me  the  address 
of  Evelina  Bray  ?  "  Mr.  Downey  at  once 

377 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTREES 

wrote  that  he  was  her  husband,  told  of  his 
service  of  the  Master,  and  indirectly 
begged  for  assistance  in  his  work  of  spread- 
ing the  gospel.  At  this  time  he  was  an 
evangelist  of  the  Baptist  church,  having 
some  time  since  abandoned  the  mother 
faith.  And,  though  he  was  not  reduced 
to  poverty,  he  accepted  alms,  as  if  poor, 
thus  trying  sorely  the  proud  spirit  of  his 
wife.  So  it  was  not  an  unwonted  request. 
Of  course,  the  poet  had  no  sympathy 
with  the  work  of  attack  Mr.  Downey  was 
evidently  engaged  in.  But  he  feared  the 
girl  friend  of  his  youth  might  be  in  des- 
titute circumstances,  and,  for  her  sake,  he 
made  a  liberal  remittance.  All  this  the 
miserable  husband  tried  to  keep  from  his 
wife,  who  he  knew  would  at  once  return 
the  money,  but  she  came  upon  the  fact  of 
the  remittance  by  finding  Whittier's  letter 
in  her  husband's  pocket. 
378 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  ROOFTBEES 

Naturally,  she  was  very  indignant,  but 
her  letter  to  Whittier  returning  the  money 
was  couched  in  the  most  delicate  terms, 
and  gave  no  hint  of  the  misery  of  her  life. 
Until  the  year  of  his  death  she  was  an 
occasional  correspondent  with  the  poet,  one 
of  his  last  letters,  written  at  Hampton 
Falls  in  the  summer  of  1892,  being  ad- 
dressed to  her.  Their  only  meeting  was  at 
the  Haverhill  Academy  reunion  of  1885, 
fifty-eight  years  after  the  love  episode  of 
their  school-days. 

When  they  met  at  Haverhill  the  poet 
took  the  love  of  his  youth  apart  from  the 
other  schoolmates,  and  they  then  exchanged 
souvenirs,  he  receiving  her  miniature 
painted  on  ivory,  by  Porter,  the  same  artist 
who  painted  the  first  likeness  ever  taken  of 
Whittier.  This  latter  miniature  is  now 
in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Pickard.  The 
portrait  of  Miss  Bray,  representing  her 

3T9 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  KQOFTBEES 

in  the  full  flush  of  her  girlish  beauty, 
wearing  as  a  crown  a  wreath  of  roses,  was 
returned  to  Mrs.  Downey  after  the  poet's 
death,  by  the  niece  of  Whittier,  into  whose 
possession  it  came. 

Mrs.  Downey  spent  her  last  days  in  the 
family  of  Judge  Bradley,  at  West  New- 
bury,  Massachusetts.  After  her  death 
some  valuable  china  of  hers  was  sold  at 
auction,  and  several  pieces  were  secured  by 
a  neighbour,  Mrs.  Ladd.  The  Ladd  family 
has  since  taken  charge  of  the  Whittier 
birthplace  at  East  Haverhill,  and  by  this 
chain  of  circumstances  Evelina  Bray's 
china  now  rests  on  the  Whittier  shelves, 
together  with  the  genuine  Whittier  china, 
put  in  its  old  place  by  Mrs.  Pickard. 

It  was  not  because  of  destitution  that 
Mrs.  Downey  made  application  to  enter 
the  Old  Ladies'  Home  which  Whittier  en- 
dowed, but,  because,  cherishing  until  the 
380 


OLD  NEW  ENGLAND  EOOFTEEES 

day  of  her  death  her  youthful  fondness  for 
the  poet,  she  longed  to  live  during  the  sun- 
set time  of  her  life  near  his  grave.  In  all 
probability  her  request  would  have  been 
granted,  had  not  she,  too,  been  suddenly 
called  to  the  land  where  there  is  neither 
marriage  nor  giving  in  marriage. 


THE    END. 


381 


INDEX 


Adams,  John,  96. 

Adams,  Mrs.  John,  111. 

Adams,  Samuel,  119. 

Agassiz,    Mrs.,    290. 

Alford,  Mrs.  A.  G.,  297. 

Allston,  270. 

Antigua  merchant,  60 

Auburn,  Mount,   328. 

Bana,  Doctor,  discovers  Deborah  Sampson's  secret, 
181 ;  sends  letter  to  General  Patterson,  188. 

Bancroft,  309. 

Barlow,  Mrs.,  301. 

Barr,  George  L.,  buys  Royall  House,  72. 

Bartley,  Judge,  368. 

Bath,  13  ;  death  of  Frankland  at,  55. 

Beck,  Doctor,  286. 

Belem,  Frankland  sails  from,  53. 

Belknap,  Jeremy,  letter  of,  265. 

Berkeley,  Bishop,  11  ;  student  at  Dublin  University, 
12  ;  fellow  at  Trinity  College,  12  ;  life  as  a  tutor, 
12 ;  reception  in  London,  28 ;  marriage,  29 ;  sails 
for  Rhode  Island,  30 ;  arrives  at  Newport,  30 ; 
writes  "  Minute  Philosopher,"  32  ;  bequeaths  books 
to  Yale  College,  33 ;  dies  at  Oxford,  34  ;  portrait 
by  Smibert,  35. 

Bermuda,  proposed  college  at,  13. 

"  Blithedale  Romance,"  300,  307. 

Bradley,  Judge,  380. 

Bray.  Evelina,  born  at  Marblehead,  368. 

Brook  Farm  Institute  of  Agriculture  and  Education 
organised,  296. 

"  Brothers  and  Sisters "  at  Fay  House,  292. 

Brown,   Rev.   Arthur,   248. 

Brownson.  301. 

Brunswick,  triumphs  of  Riedesels  at,  145. 

383 


INDEX 


Burgevine,   Henry,  346. 

Burlingame,  Anson,  355. 

Burgoyne,  56,  136. 

Burr,  Aaron,   123. 

Burr,  Thaddeus,  120. 

Bynner's  story,  Agnes  Surriage,  45. 

Cadenus  and  Vanessa,  poem,  24. 

Caldwell,  Sir  John,  305. 

Carlyle  visited  by  Ripley,  299. 

Caroline,  Queen    (consort  George  Second),  29. 

Carter,  Madam,  135. 

Cary  Sisters,  367. 

Channing,  Ellery,  334. 

Channing,  Lucy,  282. 

Channing,  Mary,  281. 

Channing,    William    Henry,    282,    314. 

Chambly,   Baroness   Riedesel  at,   131. 

Charlestown  City  Hall,  270. 

Chichester,   Eng.,  56. 

Child,   Professor,  286. 

Christ  Church,  Boston,  104. 

Church,  Doctor,  122 ;  fall  of,  147 ;  imprisoned,  150 ; 
education  of,  151 ;  delivers  Old  South  Oration, 
152 ;  tried  at  Watertown,  154  ;  confined  in  Nor- 
wich Jail,  155;  lost  at  sea  (?),  156. 

Clark,  Rev.  Jonas.  111. 

Clark,  Mrs.   Jonas.   118. 

Clarke  mansion  purchased  by   Frankland,   54. 

Clough,  Capt.   Stephen,  162. 

Codman,  Mrs.  J.  Amory,  261. 

Codman,  Martha,  261. 

Columbian   ('ciitincl,   360. 

Coolidge,  J.  Templeton,  247. 

Corey,  Giles,  pressed  to  death,   238. 

Corey,  Mrs.  Martha,  condemned  as  witch,  234. 

Corwin,  Justice  Jonathan,  226,  228. 

Cotton,   Rev.   John,  212,  221. 

Courier,  Nnr  Eiifiland,  30. 

Congress.   Continental,   120. 

Copley,  270. 

Crowninshield,  Hannah,  85. 

Curtis,  George  William,  at  Brook  Farm,  303. 

Dana,  Charles,  303. 

Dana,  Dr.  J.  Freeman,  274. 

Dana,  Edmund,  2S1. 

Dana,  Sophia  Willard,  281 :  marries  George  Ripley, 
293  :  goes  over  to  Rome,  299. 

Danvers,  228. 

Dawes  at  Lexington,  114. 

Deerfield.  190. 

Diaz.  Abby   Morton.   304. 

Dorothy    Q.    at    Lexington,    112,    117;    marries    John 

384 


INDEX 


Hancock,  123 :  marries  Captain  Scott,  128 ;  re- 
ceives Lafayette,  129. 

Downey,  Evelina  Bray,  367. 

Downey,  Rev.  William  S.,  375,  376. 

Drew,  Mr.  John,  56. 

Duse,  Eleanora,  at  Fay  House,  290. 

Dunbarton,  Stark  House  at,  74. 

Dwight,  John,  303. 

Dwight,  Marianne,  303. 

Dwight,  President  of  Yale  College,  269. 

Edmonston,  Captain,  140. 

Elizabeth,  loss  of  the  Ossolis  on,  322. 

Eliot,  John,  at  Deerfleld,  190. 

Ellsworth,  Annie  G.,  275. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  at  The  Manse,  325 ;  Haw- 
thorne and,  337. 

Emerson,  William,  at  The  Manse,  325. 

Endicott,  Governor,  227. 

Erving,  George,  at  Medford,  63. 

Essex  Institute,  67  ;  Ward  bequest  to,  355. 

Eustis,    Madam,    46. 

Everett,  Edward,  281. 

Fairbanks,  Jason,  252 ;  trial  of,  258  ;  escape  of,  259 ; 
hanging  of,  259. 

Fairbanks,  Jonathan,   260. 

Fairbanks,  Rebecca,  260. 

Fairbanks,  Chapter  D.  R.,  260. 

"  Fair  Harvard  "  written  in  Fay  House,  289. 

Fales,  Elizabeth,  252  ;  murder  of,  257. 

Fay  House,  279. 

Fay,  Maria  Denny,  283. 

Fay,  P.  P.,  283. 

Felton,  President,  286. 

Fielding,    Henry,   describes   Lisbon,   50. 

Fire  Island  Beach,  loss  of  the  Ossolis  off,  323. 

Fountain   Inn,   Marblehead,   58. 

Frankland,  Charles  Henry,  39 ;  born  in  Bengal,  39 ; 
collector  of  Boston  port,  39  :  meets  Agnes  Surriage, 
43 ;  adopts  Agnes  Surriage,  44 ;  builds  home  at 
Hopkinton,  48  ;  dies  at  Lisbon,  55. 

Franks,  Miss,  100. 

Fuller,  Margaret,  at  Brook  Farm,  301  :  born  in  Cam- 
bridge, 312;  joins  Tribune  staff,  316;  at  Concord, 
338 ;  goes  abroad,  317 ;  marries  Ossoli,  320 ;  is 
lost  at  sea,  322. 

Fuller,  Timothy,  312. 

Gage,  General,  at  Boston,  107 ;  in  correspondence 
with  Church,  149. 

Geer,  Mr.,  present  owner  Royall  House,  73. 

George  First,  29. 

George  Third  entertains  the  Riedesels,  142 ;  West's 
anecdote  of,  271. 


385 


INDEX 


Gilman,  Arthur,  287. 

Oilman,  Dr.  Samuel,  289. 

Goldsmith,  357. 

Gordon,  "  Chinese  "  341. 

Greeley,  Horace,  316. 

Greenough,  Lily,  288. 

Greenough,  Mrs.,  288. 

Griswold,  Sarah  E.,  276. 

Hamilton,  Gail,  367. 

Hancock,  John,  at  Lexington,  111  ;  letters  of,  120, 
122  ;  marries  Miss  Quincy,  123  ;  occupies  home  on 
Beacon  Street,  125  ;  dies,  128. 

Hancock,  Lydia,  at  Lexington,   118. 

Hartford,  Conn.,  Riedesels  entertain  Lafayette  at, 
140. 

Haverhill  Academy,  368. 

Haverhill  Gazette,  369. 

Hawthorne  writes  of  Sir  Wm.  Pepperell,  67 ;  goes 
to  Brook  Farm,  295 ;  writes  of  Margaret  Fuller, 
310  ;  at  The  Manse,  324. 

Higginson,  Col.  Thomas  Wentworth,  281 ;  writes  of 
Margaret  Fuller,  314. 

Hilliard  at  The  Manse,  333. 

Hilton,  Martha,  242 ;  marries  Governor  Wentworth, 
248. 

Hobgoblin  Hall,  72. 

Hollingsworth,   301. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  280. 

Honeyman's  Hill   (Newport,  R.  I.),  16. 

Hopkinton  (Mass.),  48;  home  of  Frankland  burned, 
57 ;  residence  of  Frankland,  55 ;  Agnes  Surriage 
at,  55. 

Howard,  Lady,   142. 

Howe,  Sir  William.  99,   13U.   13s. 

Hutchinson,  Ann,  Mrs..  210  :  arrives  in  Boston,  214  ; 
holds  meetings,  21(5:  accused  of  heresy,  219;  sen- 
tenced, 220  ;  banished.  222  :  murdered,  224. 

Hutchinson,   Governor.   221',    230. 

Inman's   Farm.   32(>. 

Ireland,  Nathaniel.   279. 

Isle  of  Shoals.   r,l>. 

James.    Professor   William,   232. 

Johnson,   Doctor,   20,   24. 

Kittery   Point.   (\(\. 

Ladd,  Mrs.,  380. 

Lafayette  entertained  by  Starks,  80  ;  on  Washington 
and  Lee,  90 :  entertained  by  John  Hancock.  128 ; 
received  by  Madame  Scott.  129;  dines  with  Bar- 
oness Riedesel,  140:  visits  George  Third,  142. 

Lane,   Professor,  286. 

Larcom,    Lucy.    3(57. 

Lamed.   "  Sam,"  304. 

386 


INDEX 


Lauterbach,  family  vault  of  liiedesels  at,   1 4.>. 

Lee,   General,  at   Royall   House,   71. 

Lee,  General,  in  British  army,  90 ;  arrives  in  New 
York,  92  ;  at  Medford,  94  ;  at  Soinerville,  95  ;  dies 
in  Virginia,  103. 

Lee,  Sydney,  103. 

Lexington,  affair  at,   110. 

Lindencrone,   De  Hegermann,   288. 

Lisbon,  Frankland  at,  50  ;  earthquake  at,  51  ;  Agnes 
Surriage's  experience  at,  56 ;  Frankland  consul- 
general  at,  55. 

Longfellow,  286. 

Louisburg,  67. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  281. 

Lowell,  John,  257. 

Luther,  Martin,  Orphan  Home,  297. 

Macdon'ald,   George,  367. 

Marblehead,  Maid  of,  37  ;  Town  House,  39  ;  Fountain 
Inn,  42  ;  Whittier  at,  371. 

Marie  Antoinette,  plot  to  rescue,  163. 

Marley  Abbey   (residence  of  "Vanessa"),  22. 

Marshall,  Judge,  23. 

Massachusetts   Historical   Society,   53. 

Mather,  Rev.  Cotton,  U.TJ. 

McKean,   Elizabeth,  282. 

McKean,  Joseph,  280. 

McKinstrey,  Sarah,  marries  Caleb  Stark,  79 ;  por- 
trait of,  84. 

McNeil,   Gen.   John,  83. 

Michelet,  231. 

Minot,   Captain,   327. 

Morris,   Robert,  82. 

Morse,  Rev.  Jedediah,  265. 

Morse,  Samuel  P.  B.,  83  ;  birthplace  of,  264  ;  student 
at  Yale,  269 ;  studies  painting  in  Europe,  270 ; 
returns  to  America,  272 ;  paints  Lafayette,  272 ; 
invents  the  telegraph.  273. 

Moulton,  Mr.  Charles,  288. 

Moulton,  Suzanne,  289. 

Nason,  Rev.  Ellas,  41. 

Newman,  Robert,  116. 

Nichols,   George  C.,   buys   Royall   House,   72. 

Norris,  Miss,  287. 

Nourse,  Rebecca,  228. 

"  Old  Oaken  Bucket,"  356. 

Orvis,  John,  marries  Marianne  Dwight,  303. 

Ossoli,  Angelo,  Marchese  d',  320. 

Ossoli,  Marchesa  d'   (See  Margaret  Fuller). 

Otis,  Harrison  Gray,  257. 

Oxford,  death  of  Berkeley  at,  34. 

Page,  Capt.  Caleb,  76. 

Pennsylvania    Freeman,    372. 

387 


INDEX 


Pepperell,  Sir  William,  1st,  66. 

Pepperell,  Sir  William,  2d,  at  Medford,  63 ;  gradu- 
ated, 68  ;  marries  Miss  Royall,  68  ;  denounced,  68  ; 
sails  for  England,  68  ;  dies,  69. 

Pepperell,  Lady,  85. 

Pepperell  House  built,  66. 

Percival,  Lord,  13  ;  letter  from  Walpole,  33. 

Phips,  Governor,  233. 

Pickard,  Elizabeth  W.,  366. 

Pickard,   Samuel,  374. 

Pierce,  Professor,  286. 

Porter  House  in  Medford,   131. 

Prescott.  Doctor,  at  Lexington,  114,  326. 

Price,  Rev.  Roger,  48. 

Pulling,  Captain  John,  106,  107,  110,  116. 

Quebec,  Baroness  Riedesel  at,  131. 

Quincy,  Miss,  120  ;  marries  John  Hancock,  123. 

Raben-Levetzan,   Suzanne,   289. 

Radcliffe  College,  27!). 

Radcliffe  Magazine,  287. 

Revere,   Paul,   104,   110,   111  ;   writes  of  Church,   156. 

Revolution,  Agnes  Surriage  in,  56. 

Riedesel,  Baron,  130  ;  entertains  Lafayette.  140  :  vis- 
its George  Third,  142;  returns  to  Brunswick,  145; 
dies  at  Brunswick,  145. 

Riedesel,  Baroness,  130;  letters  of.  1M1  :  lands  in 
America,  131:  reaches  Cambridge,  134;  dies  at 
Berlin,  145  ;  Cambridge  street  named  for,  146. 

Ripley,  Doctor,  :\:\\. 

Ripley,  George,  281  ;  marries  Sophia  Dana,  293 ; 
goes  to  Brook  Farm,  295  ;  visits  Carlyle.  2!>(.>. 

Rouville.  Maj.  Hertel  de.  192. 

Royall  House  visited  by  Frankland,  45 ;  built  at 
Medford.  •  ;<». 

Royall,   Isaac,  the  nabob.  61. 

Royall,  Col.  Isaac,  proscribed,  69 ;  leaves  land  to 
Harvard,  70. 

Russell.   Major.  360. 

Salem,  Isaac  Royall  to  sail  from,  65. 

Saltonstall.   2S5. 

Sampson,  Deborah  (Gannett),  170;  early  life.  172: 
enlists  in  Continental  Army.  174:  writes  her 
mother,  176;  in  battle  of  White  Plains.  179;  sex 
discovered  by  physician.  181  ;  receives  love  letter, 
182 ;  returns  to  her  home,  188 ;  marries,  188 ; 
conducts  lecture  tour,  189. 

Savage,  347. 

Scituate.   358. 

Scott.  Sir  Walter,  340. 

Schuyler,  General,  at  Saratoga.  132;  daughter  of,  135. 

Sewall,     Judge.     2:50. 

Shirley,  governor  Massachusetts,  41. 

Shirley  House,  45. 

388 


INDEX 


Shurtleff,  Robert   (See  Deborah  Sampson). 

Sleepy  Hollow,  338,  339. 

Smibert  paints  Berkeley,  35 ;  paints  Sir  Wm.  Pep- 
perell,  1st,  67. 

Smith,  Mary,  368  ;  marries  S.  F.  Smith,  369. 

Sophia,  Princess,  and  Madame  Riedesel,  144. 

Sophocles,   Evangelinus  Apostolides,   287. 

Sparhawk,  Colonel,  66. 

Stark,  General,  at  Royall  House,  71. 

Stark,  Archibald,  75. 

Stark,  Caleb,  born  at  Dunbarton,  77 ;  marries  Miss 
McKinstrey,  79  ;  entertains  Lafayette,  80. 

Stark,  Charlotte,  82. 

Stark,  Harriett,  82. 

Stark,  Charles  F.  Morris,  82. 

Stark  Burying-ground,   88. 

Stella,  journal  of,  17  ;  marriage  to  Swift,  20. 

Story,  Capt.  William,  368. 

Story,  Judge,  286. 

Story,  Mary,  285. 

Story,  William,  285. 

Sully  steamship,  273. 

Surriage,  Agnes,  37. 

Swan,  Col.  James,  159 ;  member  Sons  of  Liberty, 
160 ;  at  Bunker  Hill,  160  ;  secretary  Mass.  Board 
of  War,  161  ;  makes  fortune,  161  ;  loses  fortune, 
161  ;  secures  government  contracts,  162 ;  returns 
to  America,  164  ;  arrested  at  Paris,  165  ;  confined 
in  St.  Pelagie,  166;  dies,  168. 

Swift,  Dean,  friend  to  Berkeley,  16;  at  lodging  in 
Bury  Street,  17 ;  letter  to  Vanessa,  21  ;  letter  to 
Lord  Carteret,  27. 

Swift,   Lindsay,   301. 

Tai-Ping  Rebellion,  346. 

Thayer,  Abijah  W.,  369. 

Thaxter,  Celia,  285. 

Thaxter,  Levi.  285. 

Thoreau  and  Hawthorne.  335  ;  grave  of,  339. 

Three  Rivers.  Baroness  Riedesel  at,  131. 

Tidd,  Jacob,  buys  Royall  House,  72. 

Titnba,  the  Indian  slave.  229. 

Titus.  Mrs.  Nelson  V.,  261. 

Tremont  House,   305. 

TTrsuline  Convent,   284. 

Vane,  Sir  Harry,  215. 

Vanessa  (Cadenus  and  Vanessa).  19;  goes  to  Ire- 
land. 20  ;  letter  to  Swift,  21  ;  letter  to  Stella,  22  ; 
legacy  to  Berkeley,  23  ;  death  of,  25. 

Vanhomrigh,  Esther   (See  Vanessa),  17. 

Vassall  House.  148 :  becomes  hospital,  149 ;  Doctor 
Church  there  confined,  150. 

Vaudreuil,  Governor,  200. 

389 


INDEX 


Walker,   Lucretia  P.,   272. 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  28;  writes  to  Lord  Percival,  33. 

Ward,  Elizabeth  C.,  founds  Chinese  library,  355. 

Ward,  Frederick  Townsend,  born  at  Salem,  342 ; 
enters  French  army,  343 ;  enlists  in  Nicaraguan 
expedition,  344 ;  arrives  at  Shanghai,  344 ;  de- 
feats Tai-Pings,  347 :  is  made  a  mandarin,  349 ; 
organises  Ever-Victorious  Army,  350 ;  marries 
Changmei,  350 ;  buried  at  Ning  Po,  352 ;  is  made 
a  god,  352. 

Warren,  Doctor,  and  Church,   157. 

Warren,  Mrs.  Mercy,  100. 

Washington,  George,  letter  of,  88. 

Wayside  Inn,  49,   241. 

Wentworth,   Governor,    marriage  of,   248. 

Wentworth,  Michael,  249. 

West,  Benjamin,  270. 

West  Indies,  proposed  seminary  at,  14. 

Whitehall  (built  at  Newport,  R.  I.),  11;  made  over 
to  Yale  College,  33. 

White,  Maria,  285,  286. 

Whitman,   Mrs.   Sarah,   290. 

Whittier  at  Marblehead.  371  :  at  Philadelphia.  372  ; 
"  A  Sea  Dream,"  written  by,  374  ;  at  Haverhill 
Seminary  reunion,  379 ;  endows  Amesbury  Home, 
366. 

Williams,  Gov.  Charles  K..  208. 

Williams,   Rev.    Eleazer    (Dauphin?),   207. 

Williams,  Eunice,  captured.  104;  is  converted  by 
Jesuits,  205 ;  marries  a  savage,  205 ;  revisits 
Deerfleld,  205. 

Williams,  Rev.  John,  193 ;  captured,  194 ;  redeemed, 
203. 

Williams.   Roger.   22»>. 

Williams,  Rev.  Stephen.  198;  captured  by  Indians, 
194:  redeemed.  203:  settles  at  Longmeadow,  204. 

Winthrop,  John,  217. 

Wiscasset.  Me.,  plan  to  entertain  Marie  Antoinette 
at.  1  <>:>>. 

Woodworth.  Samuel,  born  at  Scituate,  359;  writes 
"  Old  Oaken  Bucket,"  362  ;  dies,  364. 

Yale  College,  bequest  from  Berkeley,  33 ;  S.  F.  B. 
Morse  :it.  269. 

Zenobia,  301. 


390 


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